The Things That Wait
by RenaRoo
Summary: [Reverse Big Bang Entry] Tucker opens an unexpected email that ends up sending himself and all of the Reds and Blues toward a collision course with the unexpected and the completely deadly. In doing so, they face a beast familiar to many of them – the Meta – whose single minded efforts to complete himself with what remains of the Project Freelancer AIs. [ COMPLETE ]
1. Starting at Zero

**Synopsis:** [Reverse Big Bang Entry] Tucker opens an unexpected email that ends up sending himself and all of the Reds and Blues toward a collision course with the unexpected and the completely deadly. In doing so, they face a beast familiar to many of them – the _Meta_ – whose single minded efforts to complete himself with what remains of the Project Freelancer AIs could spell the death for more than a few of them..

 **A/N:** AT LAST! My entry for the Reverse Big Bang held by rvbficwars in collaboration with my sister from another mister, always lovely and enjoyable beyond compare theeffar who made me SO pleased by giving me an excuse to create a real Horror Story for an RvB fic – the one genre I've really wanted to try out in RvB but have so far – until right now – not had the opportunity for!

The Reverse Big Bang was a blast and working with Effar is, as always, a blast. So very much thank you to the other mods of the blog for running such a smooth, tight ship and for working with me in all my silliness and the confusion of the last few weeks as I tried to straighten out my evolving situation.

The final wordcount for this chapter is 5454 exactly, and the overall wordcount for this four-part fic should be 24k! So YAY! I hope it's as enjoyable to read as it was to write!

 **The Things That Wait  
** Chapter One: Starting at Zero

One thing they neglected to tell Tucker about being promoted and reassigned was just how fucking _boring_ it was going to be. Which one wouldn't have thought because, for one, he was having to work with the exact aliens that had been trying to wipe out the entirety of the human race for the whole Great War. That, alone, should have been full of excitement.

But fighting aliens was a lot less dangerous than being worshipped by them, and as much as Tucker's self-proclaimed ego might have determined otherwise, he was not enjoying the constant drooling of four-jawed creatures who were constantly trying to touch his kid.

Which was _weird_ and _creepy._

The other thing they hadn't told him about his assignment was that he was not the only one to be sent on it. That, as it turned out, happened to be one of the nicer surprises. What with Donut not being the least likable person on the planet. Even for a Red.

Not that Reds and Blues were real.

Maybe _that_ was why they assigned him to the stupid desert in the middle of nowhere. The fact that he could not pretend that Reds and Blues were still a thing, even when Caboose and Church didn't act like Tucker had more than proven his point.

Somewhat paranoid, Tucker wondered if that had put him on some kind of blacklist. Which didn't make sense — they promoted him to _Private First Class_ and gave him a cushy job that was basically hanging out with his kid and babysitting some touring diplomats. Even if it had meant all but freakin' dehydrating in the desert, that was a lot better off than most of the crew from Blood Gulch had been.

He _thought._ Maybe.

Tucker wasn't really good with details at the moment.

Especially when he was sitting by his sleeping son, boredly playing solitaire through his HUD, and wondering idly if their alien tourists would get bored of the sand covered pyramids yet so they could move on to a different, better part of the planet.

Like one where actual _women_ were stationed.

After all, last he saw Kaikaina she was still in Blood Gulch and making him pay ransom for the nudes she took of his tramp stamp. And lat he saw Tex…

Well, last he saw of Tex, the closest thing he had to a non-guy friend, she had gone evil, kidnapped his son, and blown up a ship to disappear forever.

Tucker's life was fucking _weird._

He was mulling over the details, and some fleeting thoughts of his career, when the solitaire matte before his eyes suddenly exploded into a flash of white that too him off guard.

The surprise of it made him jump, which only served as an _annoyance_ later when he was left with the realization that it was just a new email alert popping up over his helmet's HUD.

"Ugh, that's fucking annoying," he decided before checking on the email anyway.

While he didn't exactly have any expectations for what the email was going to pertain to, nothing could have surprised Tucker more than the answer he got. His debit card's automatic payments had been declined.

"What the hell," Tucker said out loud, straightening up and glaring at the email before attempting to open his military payroll.

His small utterances had been enough to cause Junior to roll over and sleepily yawn, his rows of teeth clattering together as he did so. The little alien child was looking at Tucker a little bit expectantly.

"Sorry, bud, just go back to sleep," Tucker tried to assure his kid only for his body to go rigid at the next alert he received. _Account not found._ "What the…"

Junior woke up even more, sitting up in his bed and chattering nonsense alien blabber at Tucker that he couldn't be bothered to translate. He then leaned in, looking even more concerned.

"Hold on a sec, kiddo," Tucker all but ordered before looking over from their bunks to Donut's bunks. "Hey! Psst! Donut! Donut, wake up! There's something up with our accounts! Money's not getting transferred or some bullshit! Do you know how much debt I've got riding on being paid off by automatic payments? I'll give you a preview: it's fucking staggering!"

With a yawn and stretch, Donut turned in his bunk and looked across the way at Tucker and Junior. The desert had done nothing to diminish his much self-care Donut did, so him turning to look their way required removing his sleeping mask and Tucker and Junior both acclimating to the fact that Donut's face was covered in some disgusting black mask.

"Tucker, why're you still awake?" he yawned. "Aren't we going hiking to the tallest temple tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I'm so excited that I can't sleep," Tucker replied flatly. "Put on your helmet and check your military account. It's saying I'm not in the system anymore!"

"How're you supposed to get paid?" Donut asked, reaching over and grabbing his own helmet.

"That's the problem!" Tucker groaned in return.

"Okay, okay, calm down," Donut replied, putting his helmet on, clicking it into place as quickly as he could. The moment everything was aligned, Tucker could see the lights to Donut's helmet come on and his visor light up. It was kind of like plugging into the Matrix. But being allowed to keep your eyebrows. "What am I looking for again?"

"Account log in," Tucker answered. "I'm not showing up at all!"

"Huh," Donut answered without elaboration.

Groaning, Tucker grabbed the sides of his helmet. "Yours too? Maybe it's just the system's down?"

"Oh, no, I logged in automatically," Donut said with a casual flip of his wrist. "I just have more money than I realized. _Sc-a-whooore!"_

Annoyed, Tucker narrowed his eyes. "Wow, congrats. That's really fucking comforting."

"Why? You need a loan?" Donut asked, folding his fingers together.

"No! I was being sarcastic. Like… dude! What the fuck's going on? Why can't I find my account?" Tucker asked just before another flash of white crossed his HUD, that time making him yelp and fall back out of his chair.

Donut and Junior both looked at him without moving even an inch to check on him.

"You know, you really should unplug from your helmet more often," Donut said with a shrug. "Having technology hardwired to your brain twenty-four seven _can't_ be all that good for you. Or else we would have just all gone _Ghost in the Shell_ ages ago."

"Gone _Matrix,_ dude," Tucker corrected. "And I'm fine, it's just my email alert caught me by surprise."

" _If you say so,"_ Donut sang, already beginning to take his helmet back off. "That must be whatever troubleshooter was wrong with your stuff. You know how tech is! Sometimes it makes you get in from behind and earn it!"

"No, Donut, I don't know what that means," Tucker scoffed, opening the email. "Huh, that's weird. What the fuck's going on? It's all encrypted and shit. Like. it's a whole page of numbers and bullshit! That's not going to help me pay my debt off to sassysluts dot com!"

"You _pay_ for porn?" Donut asked in mild concern. "I had no idea being straight was so hard. I just go to Harry Potter sites—"

"I don't _pay_ for it, I just… sometimes click download when I shouldn't," Tucker answered. "It's asking me to download. I'm totally clicking it because, unlike porn, it's my email. And viruses never come from emails."

"I don't know, Tucker, downloading an unknown email to a helmet connected to your brain seems like a _real_ bad idea," Donut tried to argue, but of course Tucker had already accepted anyway.

Junior was clicking his jaws in concern and in general looking disturbed.

"Oh my god it's saying it's only _two percent_ downloaded," Tucker whined. "What've I done!?"

"You let a stranger in through your backdoor and know you're going to wake up with regrets in the morning," Donut responded.

"Okay, you're no help," Tucker began to snap when he felt it.

It started with another white flash before his eyes, something that finally didn't make him jump the way the others before it had, but unsettled him into silence all the same. He was anticipating for the flash to fade back and allow him to move on with his conversation or, at the very least, his download when a harsh chill moved its way down his spine.

The same implants which allowed Tucker to have access to his HUD were beginning to burn, like a computer on overdrive, Like they were running too much, too fast, and the skin around it was burning. He wanted to reach back toward it to yank the metal from his flesh but he couldn't move. Something was stopping the impulse, like an electric jolt overriding his nerves and sparking in the back of his mind in reverse.

He let out a cry of surprise and stomach churning horror at the sensation. It _hurt._ It fucking _hurt_ and he was more surprised by the development than anyone.

Vaguely, he could hear his name being called and _blarghed_ nearby him but things were turning inward on him very fast and with a lot of power.

All he knew is it all goddamn hurt and he couldn't make it stop.

His HUD flashed something other than white for a second, though his brain could hardly process it through the shock and pain. It only really made sense to him later. _Ten percent._

His neck, the base of his skull, was scalding and he was sure he was yelling, but he couldn't hear. It was all white.

Before it said _twenty percent_ he was unconscious entirely.

* * *

There were a lot of ways the dream usually started. A few things were the same — the familiar surroundings of his quarters in Blood Gulch, the humidity of an unending arid, summer day, and the complaining. The complaining was probably the most constant of the constants.

After all, you didn't really spend the better part of five years with someone and not have their quirks imprinted on the front of your skull. Visible every time you closed your eyes.

It was a mark of either torture or a genuine friendship. And it was only someone like Church who could have made the two nigh indistinguishable.

Usually that voice was joined by another — his own, Caboose's, Tex's. Less common, the Reds would be there, joining in with the blanket complaints. Tucker liked to think it was a sign that he at the very least had enough self respect to limit his dreams to Blue Base, but it wasn't always true.

In fact, it was infrequently true enough that hearing Donut interject in the middle of Church's usual string of complaints was actually not even all that shocking.

"Wow, I can't believe that just like that, you'd insert into another man like that! I think usually you'd err on the side of caution and at least give them some preparation!"

"What the fuck do you want from me, dude? I panicked! I was haunting a fucking _email._ It was about as quick thinking as I could get. Plus, you know Tucker. What are the chances he'd open an email titled _Warning, Fucking Ghost Inside, Prepare to Have Your Shit Wrecked!"_

"I mean, it _sounds_ like the title of a porno."

There was a thoughtful pause.

"Okay, fair enough. Tucker's the one jackass that would open anything remotely pornographic. You know, he's had his identity stolen, like, twelve times! Just since I've known him!"

"Is that a lot?"

"Yeah, Donut! It's a fucking lot! Though, honestly, maybe it wasn't stolen and he's just lying as an excuse for why _my_ credit had to be used every time we ordered something for the goddamn base. Between him and Tex, it's _amazing_ that I didn't die sooner just to get out of paying interest."

There was a cooing noise, closer to Tucker's face that suddenly sprung the marine from drifting between consciousness to full alert. A fatherly instinct that told him that as much as nothing seemed unusual about Church whining and Donut being… _himself_ , he would never ever have a dream where he let Church around Junior without full supervision.

"Dude!" Tucker gasped, jolting awake and sitting up only to partially collapse backwards when the dizziness pounded him, face first.

There were still spots in his vision as Donut fell back, being caught by Donut almost tenderly.

"Hey! Slow down there! You've had a lot put in you while you're out!" Donut said soothingly, if not nonsensically.

Beside him, leaning in close over Tucker's other shoulder, Junior was fine and visibly unhurt. Concern, though, was racking the young alien's face as he looked over Tucker worriedly. His jowls clattered together in a series of noises that probably _should_ have been easier for Tucker to decipher, but with his headache and the general confusion of the moment, were just about meaningless.

"I… I thought I was hearing Church…" Tucker babbled confusedly, reaching up to rub at his eyes only to awkwardly discover his helmet was on. Something that he _probably_ should have figured out with his HUD activated, but in his defense he _also_ hadn't had any idea what else was going on in the moment. "That was… man, that was weird as fuck. Desert's getting to me."

"Uh… I don't know about that…" Donut half sang as he gently guided Tucker back to leaning against a wall.

Tucker began to sober up rather quickly at that, looking directly at Donut with surprise. "Wait! Church is here? I was really hearing him? Holy shit! Where is he? Why hasn't he ever wrote me back! Dude, you better not be telling me he was going on adventures without me. I would be so pissed — oh fuck. Did he bring Caboose? Fucking bet he brought Caboose. Ugh. Never mind. I need you to grab one of those stupid big rocks the aliens worship and use it to knock me out before Caboose gets here."

Donut hesitated, as if he was considering the offer, when the moment was interrupted by that familiar, angry voice.

"Hey, jackass! I didn't bring anyone but myself! And that was already _hard as hell_ , so if you're not _dying_ or anything I'd like to take a rest or something," Church snapped at Tucker.

 _Ah, just like old times._

"Dude! Church! Did you hear what I was asking? Do you have any answers? Do you want to yell them at me? Can I video tape it so I have something to yell at me when you decide to _completely fuck off the face of the planet_ again?" Tucker asked, whipping his head back and forth. The action was causing the pressure behind his eyes to build and the dizziness to only intensify, but Tucker didn't _care._ It was worth it to see his friend again.

Of course, it was a little disheartening to not be rewarded with seeing Church.

"Calm down, your vitals are jumping _all over_ the fucking place," Church snapped.

Tucker squinted. "Vitals?"

"Yeah, I'm haunting your armor. Which fucking _sucks,_ by the way. Why's your chest piece a size too small?"

"Right!? I've been trying to tell people that for _ages_ but no one believes me about how much it chaffs my nipples!" Tucker yelled. "My superior officer always…. told me to shut up and to put matters into my own hands…"

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Shut up. And if it bothers you, put matters into your own hands—" Church began to say only to stop short and hum. "Huh. Okay. I get it."

"Yeah, plus I _definitely_ took that advice, and that's why I made my special rock," Tucker informed him. "But it never helped with the nipple stuff."

"Gross," Church replied flatly.

"You had a rock, too!?" Donut cried out excitedly.

"GROSS!" Church repeated. "Okay, seriously, we're derailing from the actually important shit. Which is getting you guys going while I take a momentary snooze."

"Going _where?_ Why the hell would we be going _anywhere_ for you?" Tucker asked. "I can't even _see_ you, dude! It's making it _super_ confusing to talk to you! And what the fuck is this shit about you hiding in my armor!?"

"What? No! I'm not _hiding_ in your armor, I'm haunting it!" Church snapped.

"I don't know, Church! It sounded a _lot_ like hiding from the asshole rather than embracing it to me," Donut corrected, folding his arms. "And trust me, _I_ should know!"

"What!?" Church and Tucker yelled in unison.

"The asshole you were telling me about." Donut clarified.

"Ah, gotcha," Church responded. "Okay, that makes sense."

Hairs prickling on the back of his neck, Tucker raised up his hands over his head. "What the _fuck_ are you doing in my armor!?"

"Oh, calm down. You're so insecure," Church snapped. "I'm _haunting_ your armor. And it's not because I'm hiding from that asshole fucker Agent Washington."

Tucker reached for his helmet achingly. "Agent _what?_ Okay, seriously, Church, I can't concentrate on the bullshit you're saying if I can't see you. It's weirding me out! You sound _so fucking close_ and it's just creepy that I can't see you!"

"Jesus, Tucker, have you never talked on a cellphone before? Fucksake," Church groaned.

Without much more hesitation, however, the former Blue leader presented himself. Or what Tucker could only _assume_ was Church presenting himself. It looked like Church, but in his supposed ghost form — glowing white and transparent. Still in his regular armor and with a sniper rifle.

And also _super_ fucking small, floating just a few feet in front of Tucker's shoulder, like a pirate's parrot waiting to perch.

"Happy? Better be because I'm fucking _exhausted_ after emailing myself here and explaining everything to Donut already," Church snapped. "And making myself visible for _the most sensitive guy on the planet_ is only draining me more!"

"Hey, ladies _love_ the sensitivity," Tucker corrected him.

"Do they? I know I do," Donut added unnecessarily.

Junior tilted his head and gave a signature _Bow Chicka Honk Honk._

Tucker, having spent more than enough time in the desert with him, just gave Donut a frustrated glance and shrugged his hands at him expectantly. "Dude, what've I said before?"

"You say a lot of things to me, Tucker, but I usually forget them after _Tequila O'Clock_ , and so do you," Donut reminded him.

"I leave you for a year and you've completely canoodled with the enemy," Church stated flatly to Tucker.

"You mean _colluded,_ and I didn't _collude_ with anyone!" Tucker argued.

"I know what I said and now you're just changing subjects," Church said pointedly.

"Why're you haunting my armor and why are you hiding from this Agent Asshole?" Tucker asked somewhat seriously.

"I just told you I'm _exhausted_ from haunting that email. Why can't you ask Donut? He has the four-one-one," Church argued.

"Uh, because I want to be able to take it seriously and not have… embellishments," Tucker said, eyeing Donut a bit, though the Red seemed far from offended.

"Ugh, forget it," Church groaned. "Long story short, there was a whole lot of bullshit that went down, Agent-Fucking-Washington got me and Caboose together again. We went looking for Tex. Didn't find _shit_. And then Washington decided to blow up some dead bodies before telling me that Tex and I aren't ghosts but we're computer AIs from this Project Freelancer bullshittery!"

Tucker blinked. "Yeah, checks out," he said flatly. "Wait, is this guy _just_ an asshole because he pointed out the obvious?"

"It's not obvious because it's not _true!_ I'm a _ghost_ and so is _Tex,_ and this entire goddamn planet is the worst kind of purgatory imaginable," Church huffed angrily.

"Ghosts that get downloaded into armor to haunt them, sure," Tucker rolled his eyes.

"Don't fuck with me now, dude, I'm _high strung_ and _tired_ so I need to—"

"Reboot?" Tucker snickered.

"Tucker. I'm _telling_ you, dude, don't fuck with me right now. I just got exploded-dead by Washington already. I don't need any additional _bullshit,"_ Church hissed.

"Is that why you're tired and think he's an asshole?" Tucker asked, a note of concern in his voice despite his best efforts to suppress it.

"Oh! This is where it gets _really_ interesting," Donut informed Tucker. He looked like he would have been right at home snacking on some popcorn at that moment.

"No, he's an asshole because he's _an asshole,"_ Church affirmed. "And I'm _tired_ because in order to email myself to you before shit went down, I had to use that bastard Wyoming's time-thingy to send me back before I died and, like, _thirty minutes_ before you, coincidentally enough, sent out a distress signal to the building we were exploding."

"Wait… you went back in time?" Tucker asked, baffled. "I'm about to send out an emergency signal!? And what's this bullshit about you exploding a building? Do you need us to go, like, stop that?"

Church let out an annoyed sigh. "Oh my god, you're really not accepting the fact that I'm tired and Donut has all the info you need."

"I've been with Donut for, like, eighteen months, dude. You're my best least-hated friend and I've not talked to you _once_ since all this shit went down." He paused for a moment before frowning at Church's image. "I've missed you."

"Awesome," Church replied flatly. "Noted. Prepare to miss me even _more_ on your guys' way to Valhalla."

"Valhalla?" Tucker asked curiously. "Is that where the explosion is? Wait! Where's Caboose? Do we need to save him? I'm proficient at saving Churches, but that's got a, like, fifty percent _less_ chance of happening if Caboose is around!"

"TUCKER! Let me _sleep,_ goddamn!" Church screeched. "Turning off. Sneak yourself and Donut out of here and start toward Valhalla already before shit goes down."

"Wait!" Tucker cried out only for Church to disappear with an audible click.

He looked at the vacant space where Church had been but as hard as Tucker looked, Church didn't pop back into existence.

Being at least somewhat aware of his father's distress, Junior let out another worried noise before crawling into Tucker's lap. It was a small gesture, but it at least gave Tucker reason to reach out and gently take hold of his son. That hold developed into Tucker protectively picking up the young alien messiah as he knew they were, for better or worse, about to race out into unknown circumstances.

"I don't know what I hate more," Tucker lamented. "How much he randomly disappears on me, or how much he'll just pop back up and ruin a decent goodbye."

Donut's head tilted curiously. "Was that a decent goodbye?"

"Dude, how long have you known Church?" Tucker asked seriously.

"Fair enough!" Donut responded in a rather chipper tone.

Annoyed, Tucker pursed his lips and looked Donut's way. "You realize he really _is_ a computer program, right? Like. That's the only way _anything_ has made sense since Blood Gulch."

The Red hummed and tapped a finger on the chin of his helmet. "Well, it _would_ fill in some holes. But I think it'd leave some others gaping wide open! Just _desperate_ to be filled!"

"Yeah, but it's better than everyone having fucking _ghosts_ but only Church and Tex bother to do anything with them," Tucker pointed out. "You don't see fucking _Crunchbite_ around, bitching about how to raise Junior! If he _was,_ I'd fucking ghostbust him!"

"I think Sarge had a ghost, though, maybe," Donut continued.

"Donut, you're thinking too hard about it," Tucker decided. "Church is _totally_ an AI. Someone could only be _programmed_ to be that annoying."

"So _Sarge_ is programmed too…" Donut gasped. "Tucker! How many people do we know who are just computers?"

"Uh… Lopez… Sheila…" Tucker began listing.

"It's spreading!" Donut yelled out.

"Okay, that's enough," Tucker grunted, shifting Junior in his arms before pushing up to his feet. "Are you coming or not?"

"Oh, I'm always ready to come," Donut replied before spryly leaping to his feet in one smooth motion. "But should we tell the aliens? I mean… we _are_ representing the _Peace Corps._ And we _are_ taking Space Jesus with us."

"Hey! Don't inflate his ego," Tucker warned, petting Junior's head to the child's annoyance. "I told you, Donut, we Tuckers have naturally inflated egos that make us fucking _masters_ at dishing out what the people want, but also _stupid dangerous_ to flatter. With a much bigger ego, we could take over worlds with charisma alone."

Donut brought a hand to his chin thoughtfully. "Hm, I would like to see evidence of this."

"Can't, too dangerous," Tucker shrugged in response. "Which, by the way, is _also_ why we're not telling these alien assholes we're leaving. Church said that he went back in time because I sent a distress signal from here. Which means we were distressed."

"Makes sense," Donut nodded.

"And what's more distressing than getting turned on by a bunch of conservative nut jobs who want to treat an underaged kid like he's some kind of holy, reverent shit? These guys are _totally_ going to try to kill us!" Tucker decided.

"It must be the one named _Clark_ ," Donut gasped, pounding a fist into his right hand. "I knew not to trust someone named _Clark!_ Who's ever been a good guy named _Clark!?"_

"Superman," Tucker said without hesitation. "Wait, why Clark?"

"Because Church said your emergency mentioned _CT,_ obviously short for the evil known as _Clark!"_ Donut announced.

Tucker merely stared back at the Red. "Donut, if you know that, then you also knew why I was even suggesting we leave without a note! In fact, you know more shit than I do if Church was telling the truth! We're just wasting time here!"

"I think we've been _super_ productive, actually," Donut said, folding his arms. "I really wasn't sold on our motivations until you laid everything out there for me like this. Now I'm _totally_ with this new vision. Not exactly _my_ creative decision, but I like it."

"Okay, forget it, I like flying by the seat of my pants so let's just head to this Valhalla place and figure out things from there," Tucker decided.

"Oh! And while we're on our way, I'll fill you in on what Church didn't mention to you!" Donut replied enthusiastically as he followed Tucker toward the vehicles for their camp.

"He's dead again, this Agent Washington's an asshole, Church wants us in a place that I _swore_ was something those Thor movies made up but apparently not," Tucker listed off. "See? Totally got it."

"Uh, you've got the _boring relevant stuff,"_ Donut argued, jumping into the driver's seat. "He didn't even _start_ to tell you what Red Team did on their adventure before exploding the building!"

"Red Team was there? Jesus, how the fuck did _that_ not make it to the summary?" Tucker asked, setting Junior in the seat between them and buckling him in.

"Eh. I'd say narrator's bias," Donut answered.

He started up the Warthog they were in and before the aliens could even stir awake at their camp, Donut was flooring it and they were bounding out of the desert. It was just Tucker's hope beyond hope that along with the Red Team shenanigans, Church managed to also tell Donut how to get to the near mythical Valhalla.

* * *

Valhalla, as it turned out, was far enough away from the desert temple that an entire body of water _and_ some grassy knolls were along the way before they even got close.

Whether it was _sleep_ or _recharging_ , Church kept true to his word and was a non-presence for the vast majority of the trip. It kept Tucker's headaches and confusion at bay, but didn't remove the consistent, low hum from the back of his mind throughout the trip. It really _was_ less and less like any haunting Tucker had ever been aware of and more like some kind of computer virus to his whole body.

Though, when he mentioned the analysis out loud to Donut, he was assured that it made absolutely no sense as an analogy.

Donut's own biases, however, were just as self evident.

"And _that's_ why I absolutely _cannot_ believe that Church just _left out_ everything that Sarge, Grif, and Simmons did during the whole adventure! You could really make an argument that they were the whole catalyst for so much of what happened!" Donut argued, driving them through the grassy planes, seemingly oblivious to even the idea that there could have been some sort of pathway or _road_ for them to take instead.

Junior was curled up in Tucker's lap, trying to sleep despite the off roading unease, so big by then that he was half out of Tucker's lap entirely.

"Well, I wouldn't say that it was _totally_ necessary to know everything they did alongside Church, Caboose, and Washington, but it _did_ help make some sense out of all the random elements that came into play," Tucker agreed.

Looking dissatisfied with the compromise, Donut sniffed and tilted his chin up and away from Tucker. "No appreciation for storytelling," he surmised.

"Guess not," Tucker shrugged. He then looked ahead to the direction Donut was guiding them toward. He shifted uncomfortably. "Man. I thought after all that time stuck at that boring temple, seeing some green and _life_ again would be a huge relief but… it's just kinda unsettling to keep driving through more and more wilderness, y'know?"

"Nope, have no idea what you mean," Donut shrugged.

"It's like… at the end of this, are we just going to find some cabin in the woods we have to stay at. Like idiots? And then we do something that unleashes some unholy terror on us? And we're picked off one by one?"

Donut tilted his head. "Huh. That wouldn't take too long. There's only four of us. Three if you and Church count as the same person! Do unholy terrors go after ghosts? I'm not sure. I was never really that religious."

"Fuck if I know. I one time told a girl dressed up like the Virgin Mary that I'd fill her with some Holy Spirits, and next thing I know middle school Tucker isn't allowed in any church in all of Detroit!" Tucker deadpanned. It wasn't the zinger he was hoping for, mostly because Junior was asleep and unavailable for their patented trademark, but also because barely a breath had left his lungs before he was looking ahead and faced with a rather shocking sign laid out before them. He raised up slightly in his seat before settling down again to not disturb Junior. "Whoa! Look how fucking _tall_ that is — holy shit! Are these _bases?"_

"Yup! Looks like we got to Valhalla — just like Church described, just less destruction. Guess he exaggerated on that part," Donut said cheerfully just before they pulled over another hill and saw the long stretch of grassland between the two bases. Then, suddenly, they were met with several crashed helicopters, vehicles, and scorching fires around each. Also, in the distance, a familiar wrecked ship could be seen. "Whoops! I stand corrected! My bad," Donut added.

"Yeah, this isn't _much_ better than my idea bout the cabin," Tucker said flatly. He looked around just once before a bright white light flickered on over his shoulder, drawing both his and Donut's attention toward it. He raised his brows expectantly. "Well, well. Look who joined the world of the living. Finally. Good sleep, Church?"

"Yeah, I'm back to one hundred percent, you could say," Church replied candidly.

Tucker leaned toward Donut and stage whispered, "Like a battery…"

"Hey, I can _hear_ that, jackass!" he snapped. "Forget that, though, tell me what you guys did about the people who surrounded you."

"What people?" Donut asked.

No sooner had the exchange completed than the distinct sound of multiple guns clicking to lock their triggers could be heard just behind them.

Church flinched. "Ohhhh."

Stiffly, Donut and Tucker both glanced to each other and then slowly raised their hands.

"Church," Tucker said in annoyance, "ghost or computer — doesn't matter. You're, like, the _worst_ wingman."

"Ever. Of all time," Church added.

"What?" Donut asked.

"How the _hell_ did I give you details about _every little thing_ that happened, and didn't remember to explain _that?"_ Church asked with annoyance of his own. But it was far from something Tucker could concentrate on.

The real concern, for the moment at least, was figuring out how to get themselves out of the current disaster. And, hopefully, to find out exactly what the hell was going on.


	2. Trust No One

Long, long overdue, I know and greatly apologize, but this chapter kept getting longer than it was meant to be and suddenly we have what we have now, which is another patented Rena monstrosity haha.

Now, I want to warn everyone that CHARACTER DEATH and GORE are going to be pretty common from here on out, starting with this chapter. And, yeah, some of your favorite darlings are going to be murdered more than likely. So. Consider this your warning. And let's get into it.

And a very special thanks to secretlystephaniebrown, splendiforousblog, doesthisfightcountforanything, Yin, Aryashi, and primtheamazing! And, of course, my absolute WONDEROUS thanks to my partner in crime, theeffar 3

 **The Things That Wait  
** Chapter Two: Trust No One

"God _dammit_ , Church, not even a _little_ heads up!?"

Tucker had worked for many years under the assumption that as far as _teamwork_ went that Blue Team truly was utterly useless, but being smacked in the face with the evidence wasn't exactly what he needed at the moment. Not when his toddler right at his side.

He as probably going to have his brains shot out right in front of Junior and Tucker _highly doubted_ that his pension was going to cover the amount of therapy _that_ sort of thing would amount to. Let alone college.

"I'm a ghost, not a babysitter, what the hell do you want from me?" Church responded without a moment's hesitation.

"What the _fuck!?_ He's supposed to be dead!" a _very_ familiar voice called out from behind them.

"It… _can't_ be… can it? Is that _Church?"_ a second _very very_ familiar voice said in response.

And if Tucker doubted himself, Donut's response was all he really needed. His partner let out a huge sigh of relief covered in a small bit of laughter before lowering his arms to his sides and whirling around on his heels. Which was more than Tucker was willing to do with gun sights on him, but Donut was, strangely enough, exactly the sort of dumb bravery to pull it off.

"Guys! Oh, man! I was beginning to think that we weren't going to see you!" Donut almost sang, opening his arms up for a hug.

"Donut! Get over here and get your gun up!" a voice that could _only_ be Simmons' ordered. There was a strained upward pitch to his words, just enough _off_ to tip Tucker off to… _something._

He needed more context, but he was certainly on edge, even _with_ old… _freinemies_ at the other end of a gun barrel.

 _Oh please. We're all done with the Red and Blue thing, they_ just _helped Caboose and me like. A few days ago,_ Church scoffed, his voice seemingly reverberating between Tucker's ears. If Tucker thought too much about the _source_ of the voice it added to the mounting headache he already felt.

"What the fuck were you doing with a _Blue_ at a time like this!? Especially one with a goddamn _alien connection!?"_ Grif's voice spat at Donut, setting what little bit of Tucker's spine that _wasn't_ edge back on the right path of anxiety and a touch of nausea.

"You were saying?" Tucker asked out loud.

"Fuck me if I know what's going on," Church answered over the speaker of their now collective suit.

"Okay, what the fuck? Where's _his_ voice coming from!?" Grif growled out, sounding angrier than Tucker had ever known the otherwise chill Red to be. It added to the unsettlement factor.

"I don't… what the _hell_ is going on?" Tucker demanded.

"And what's wrong with Tucker?" Donut asked, _finally_ coming to Tucker's aid. Somewhat. "He's cool. He's not even all that Blue. He's _aquamarine_ … or maybe a touch of turquoise… Hey, Tucker, what color _is_ your armor?"

"Fuck if I know! Is _right now_ really the time to be asking about that?" Tucker demanded.

"Tucker… it's _never_ the wrong time to question one's undertones," Donut admonished him so sincerely it _almost_ made Tucker think over the situation. Almost.

"The _problem_ with him is that he's-he's-he's," Simmons sputtered, seemingly more unwound by the minute. "He's a _Dirty Blue,_ Donut! What more could you possibly want!?"

"Uh, answers for starters!" Tucker snapped.

At his calf, Junior clung tightly, letting out a series of distressed, rolling noises from his mouth and tensing up each time someone, _especially_ Tucker, raised their voice. The fact that Tucker still wasn't sure if it was safe or not to lean over and comfort his son was almost _literally_ killing him.

"Okay, here's an answer, _fuck you and fuck Church_ , he was supposed to die _ages_ ago and then he gets us _here_ and suddenly you assholes thank us for pulling your team out of the fire _by goddamn killing Sarge!"_ Grif was incredibly worked up, to the point that his little speech ended in what Tucker could _only_ consider a crescendo.

But even with the showy declaration, the actual words hit him and hit him _hard._

"Sarge is dead?" Donut said, all flavor and joy gone from his voice. There was a hint of disbelief in it, a note of despair.

"And what the fuck do _I_ have to do with any of it?" Church asked, finally showing himself as a fully formed, transparent being glowing white and clutching a nonexistent sniper rifle right beside Tucker and Junior.

And, being on the other end of the display for the first time since it all started years and years ago in a different canyon between two different bases, Tucker could read out over his helmet's HUD device that there was an amount of the armor's power supply being utilized for _extended projection._

He noted the phenomenon for later.

"Fuck _you_ , dude," Grif countered Church viciously. "After _all_ that bullshit, after _everything—"_

"I don't know _what the hell_ is going on," Tucker shouted them down, daring to move his head just enough to glance over his shoulder at the three Reds. "I _really_ don't, and that's _with_ Mr. Chicken and the Ghost giving me a full debriefing. But I _do_ know that if you assholes don't take your guns off _me_ and off my _goddamn kid_ , we're going to have problems."

After spending months together in the desert and beyond, hanging out with tyrannical alien species and even more slanderous and backstabbing upper echelons of the military, Tucker had come to expect Donut's helpful and disarming charisma to follow suit.

When it didn't, there was a bit of a sting Tucker felt that he couldn't quite peg.

"We trusted you guys, we believed the whole Red and Blue thing was a farce. Sarge didn't. And now he's _dead_ , fucking explain _that,"_ Simmons argued. He sounded broken, betrayed. Tucker almost wondered if it stung him, too.

"Sorry, man, I am," Church spoke up. "You … You helped us out. A lot. I hate to hear that. Even if Sarge was… honestly pretty homicidal and wanted nothing more in life than our helmets as trophies."

"Dude," Tucker hissed. " _Not_ helping!"

"But we've been with Donut for as long as my haunted email got opened by Tucker, and Tucker and Donut have been away the whole time we were doing bullshit with the Freelancer fuck," Church pointed out.

"We're not saying _you two_ killed Sarge!" Simmons snapped.

"It sure _sounds_ like that's what's being said," Tucker remarked pointedly.

"We're saying _Caboose_ killed Sarge, assholes!" Grif growled. "He killed Sarge during another one of his _stupid fucking raids_ of our base and we're _done_ with playing nice with you guys!"

Immediately, everything was going sideways and Tucker just _knew_ , he _knew,_ that even if what Grif and Simmons were saying was _true_ that it wasn't _right._ And that was causing all sorts of chaos in his head. Not assisted by the fact that Church, true to form, was apparently ready to _boil over_ with rage.

"Hey! You don't know a _goddamn thing!_ Why would _Caboose_ kill Sarge?" Church crackled.

"Because he lost his mind!" Simmons all but screeched. "He's been suspicious ever since the police released us and he's been stealing stuff from us, being all secretive, and talking to himself all the time!"

"How do you know he's _talking_ to himself?" Tucker scrutinized. "Man, Caboose is so dumb that if he doesn't say his thoughts out loud he doesn't _have_ them. I know it's kind of annoying, but you get used to it after a while. Unless O'Malley's around. Then maybe he'll talk about wanting to kill you. That's the only time to be worried. Y'know. Unless you're me."

There was a pause that indicated Tucker had said something miscalculated, but fortunately it was Church who spoke up rather than the highly upset Reds with guns.

"Uh. Yeah. Tucker? It kinda _can't_ be O'Malley. Omega and all the other AI—"

"What other AI?" Tucker demanded.

"I fucking _told you_ the story already!" Church snapped.

"I don't care if you told me _thirty times_ — I wasn't there and I didn't pay attention for half of it," Tucker bickered.

"Oh, well isn't that just _so fucking typical!"_ Church snarled.

"Yeah! _Typically_ I don't listen when you run your mouth!"

"Oh my fucking god, _shut up,"_ Grif was groaning. He then stiffened and looked out of Tucker's periphery. "Finally! Lopez is here. We called you forever ago, dude! We need your help _pronto!_ We've got two—"

"There's three of us," Church corrected.

" _And a half,"_ Grif gritted out between his teeth.

Church seemed genuinely aghast. "What the _hell_ , Grif, we spent time in the pen together!"

"—of the Blues," Grif continued just as the brown armored robot came closer.

"Lo sé," Lopez grumbled. "Puedo ver eso."

"Now you can help us take them to the brig!" Simmons added. He hesitated slightly before glancing Grif's way. "We have one of those, right?"

"Uh," Grif responded somewhat dumbfounded. "What the fuck makes you think _I_ would know if _you_ don't know?"

"I-I don't know! Brig seems like such a Sarge thing to take care of!" Simmons cried out, sounding genuinely choked up by his own words.

"Then what are we going to do with them!?" Simmons went into full hysterics.

Tucker and Church then took their turn to glance at each other before going back to being living statues for their somewhat-kind-of captors.

"Uh. Let us go see Caboose and sort things out?" Tucker offered.

"Oh, fuck _off,_ Blue!" Grif snapped.

Lopez stepped closer to Grif and Simmons. "Quiero examinar el cuerpo yo mismo."

Simmons lowered his gun enough to put a hand over his visor and sigh in aggravation. "Lopez, jesus, _we don't understand you."_

"Eso suena como un problema personal," Lopez replied flatly.

There seemed to be a perplexing stare off between Grif and Simmons, Lopez, and the language barrier for a moment when, surprising all of them including Tucker, Donut spoke back up in a small voice.

"I want to see Sarge," Donut said. "Maybe… maybe he's not…"

As Donut trailed off, Tucker felt his chest tighten. _Fuck_ , he shouldn't have let himself get as attached to Donut as he had.

"You should let Donut see Sarge," Tucker suggested. "We'll come with you and stuff, whatever. But…"

There seemed to be an unease and shame that took over Grif and Simmons, but Donut seemed nothing but grateful.

"Thanks, Tucker," Donut said just before Grif put an arm around him and began to lead him toward the base.

Simmons hesitated before nodding to Tucker, Church, and Junior. "Well… come on, I guess."

Tucker eased up at last, his muscles still feeling taut and nervous with energy, but he focused on his priorities, scooping his son up first and following suit.

Church disappeared from Tucker's side, but there was a hum in the Blue's head that told him his former CO was still there.

 _Quick thinking, we should probably find evidence around Sarge,_ Church commented crudely.

" _Or_ pay respects to someone who we knew for years and worked with," Tucker growled under his breath.

Realizing that only half of the conversation was hearable, Tucker glanced around to see if anyone noticed.

Grif, Simmons, and Donut seemed far enough ahead leading the way it didn't matter. They were talking amongst each other, but a short glance back told Tucker that Lopez was boring judgmental robot eyes into him. Which was _not_ a great sensation.

Of course, there really wasn't _much_ that was all that good in the moment anyway…

* * *

For all the ways Tucker _hadn't_ known how the somewhat reunion of the crews from Blood Gulch was going to be, the one thing he could have never imagined, would never have _wanted_ to imagine, was the way it was unfolding before him in that moment.

There was a part of him that just… never really believed any of them could actually be _dead._

Inside of his head, Church was also carrying through with an uneasy quiet, taking in the moment. Of the way Simmons leaned into the nearest wall with a sag in his knees. Of the way Grif had eyes on them, angry, bitter, unlike anything Tucker had seen from the man before. Of the way Donut collapsed on his knees by a bright red suit, locked up in an unnatural fashion with glass and blood and a dented in helmet strewn across the base hall.

The Reds were between them and the body, but Tucker could still make out purpling exposed skin and a crew cut split by a tear through the flesh. Maybe _that_ was the killing blow. Maybe it was something else. Maybe it was all real after all.

There was just one thing certain on Tucker's mind, and that was that _this_ was not the work of Caboose.

Caboose, idiot that he sometimes made himself out to be, had a careless streak, a sort of oblivious casualness to the occasional carnage _everyone_ from Blood Gulch had been guilty of at one point or another. An accidental firing of his gun, a bomb he befriended going off at the wrong time, pressing a mysterious button that incinerated an entire room — _those_ were Caboose.

Sarge had gone down fighting, and he had been hit _hard._ Hard enough to split a skull under a helmet, hard enough to leave the indents of knuckles on armor. _Vicious_ enough and _intentional_ enough to leave a crime scene with bullet spray and blood splattered to the ceiling.

Junior was making uncomfortable squirms in Tucker's arms, teeth clattering together in a babble that tried but failed to overcome the mewing of his upset.

It was enough to grab Tucker's attention, but not enough to pull the Reds from their current tragedy.

"Jesus," Church muttered in the back of Tucker's mind. He wasn't sure if anyone else could hear Church, it was getting to be a fuzzy line what was or was not in his head.

"I… I can't believe…" Donut was uttering. "I mean… it's _Sarge_ … he… he never…"

An electricity ran up Tucker's spine that felt stronger than any kind of chill he had known before. It made his stomach feel heavy, empty. He wasn't sure _what_ the feeling was at first — guilt? Confusion? They all seemed to fit one way or another, but when Church registered again as an annoying hum in his mind, Tucker shuttered and looked upward as if rolling his eyes back far enough in his head would make Church visible.

"Church, what the—"

 _Quiet. Jesus, Tucker, can't you think_ quietly? _And here you were saying Caboose was the one with a problem of thinking out loud,_ Church hissed behind his ears. _You were getting onto me earlier about not giving you more of a heads up, so those are my heads ups from now on. Cool?_

 _Fucking weird, not cool,_ Tucker processed, feeling disoriented with the conversation. _Can't you just possess Lopez, Danny Phantom? This is fucking weird. I don't like it._

 _No way, that_ sucked _last time and Lopez began resisting me, remember? It was, like, a whole_ thing _in Blood Gulch,_ Church countered.

He wasn't wrong, but it didn't make Tucker less annoyed.

He was more than ready to leave things at that, but suddenly the electric spike rippled down his spine again. He stiffened up just before turning enough to realize that Lopez, standing right behind him with a trained gun, was looking _incredibly_ intently at Tucker. It was the kind of look that, had he not been an emotionless looking automatron, Tucker could have _sworn_ was giving him a death glare. Or a suspicious glare. Or… well, perhaps he was reading too much into it.

Without a single word, Lopez pushed past Tucker and Church, leaving them without any trained guns on them, and he came over to the other Reds' side, standing over Sarge with a bowed head. At first, Tucker thought that perhaps Lopez was looking over evidence, but after a few seconds without _any_ kind of motion, Tucker realized there were other reasons for him.

 _Guess robots can have feelings, weird,_ Church commented blissfully.

It took much restraint on Tucker's part to bite his tongue to that and let Church's delusions continue unabated.

There were more important things to be concerned with, after all.

"Guys," Tucker spoke up again, practically giving the middle finger to the immediate screaming Church started to do in his head. He adjusted Junior in his arms as all four living Reds looked at him hollowly and with _lots_ of suspicion. "I just… I'm really sorry. This feels… so wrong."

There was a moment of awkwardness that continued before Grif himself eased up his shoulders, as if he was finally ( _finally_ ) coming around to common sense. "Yeah… yeah it _really_ does," Grif agreed solemnly.

"Look," Tucker continued with the thread, daring to step out of place and toward them without a weapon in hand. "Maybe there's something I can do to help here. We owe you guys a lot from all the times before with… well, just everything. And I want to know what happened to Sarge, too. But I don't think this looks like anything Caboose would ever—"

Almost immediately, sirens began blaring, and the somber peace that had been built up between them all evaporated right before Tucker's very eyes.

"He's fucking at it _again!"_ Grif roared, gun up. "Simmons, you go left with Lopez, Donut you come with me. W're _ending_ this Red and Blue bullshit one way or another!"

"Wait!" Tucker called out just before all four Reds split across the hall, rushing past him and Junior as if they weren't even existent. "What about…" Tucker trailed off, his eyes set instead on the body in the hallway with him.

His stomach shifted uncomfortably, but in a more natural way than Church's failed alert system.

"What killed him?" Tucker asked, slowly stepping toward Sarge.

"If we knew _that_ , then se could have just told the Reds and been _done_ with this nonsense already," Church grouched.

"No, asshole, not _who_ ," Tucker snapped back. "What did it? Like _how_ did he die. That kind of stuff."

"Would you calm down? If you want a specific _answer_ maybe ask a specific _question!"_ Church bantered effortlessly.

"Church!" Tucker growled out in irritation.

"Fine! Hold on!" Church answered, he then projected once more — the small meter of used energy appearing across Tucker's HUD once more. Church then knelt down beside Sarge, taking a moment to look over him. A flicker of… _something_ — emotion, most likely — surged through Tucker like an injection. It wasn't his own, that was all he knew. "Poor bastard."

Nauseous either because of the gore or because of the confusing juxtaposition of emotions and pain conflicting inside him, Tucker turned back and squeezed his eyes shut. He let Junior down to stand on his own and used his hands to balance himself.

"Dude," Tucker got out. "Maybe you could stop fucking around and _get out of me_ already. It's starting to hurt!"

"That's what she said," Church snarked back.

 _"Bow chicka honk—"_

"No! No no no," Tucker snapped. "I'm trying to be serious here, Church!"

"Fine, I am too," Church answered, looking up at Tucker. "Asphyxiation."

"No more sex jokes for like ten minutes," Tucker said flatly.

"What? Oh, shut _up_ , I was answering your question from earlier," Church scoffed. "Asphyxiation — that's what killed Sarge. He was strangled to death."

"What? Like kinky?" Tucker asked, the wave of nausea subsiding for intrigue.

" _You just said no sex jokes!"_

"This isn't a joke! It's a question! Lots of people die that way," Tucker yelled back, caught up in the heat of the moment, before remembering there was a toddler right next to him. He then pointed accusingly at his son. "Close your ears."

Junior let out a frustrated, gargling sound.

"It's not _autoerotic asphyxiation,_ Tucker," Church sneered. "Obviously. Someone _else_ strangled him."

"Okay, but there's no way of telling that _that_ wasn't erotic," Tucker pointed out.

Church gave Tucker a strained stare. "Tucker, his fucking _head_ is caved in and he has bullet holes in him."

"But you can't say it _isn't_ —"

"Fine, it was a sexy death, Tucker, are you happy?" Church snapped.

"It's what he would have wanted…" Tucker sighed, looking over the corpse.

"Literally no one would _want_ an embarrassing kinky death but you, but sure," Church answered before flickering out. "I say we stay quiet and play this close."

Tucker got to his feet, reaching for his rifle with a roll of his eyes. " _Quiet,_ yeah, Church. That _really_ sounds like something we're capable of.

There was a moment to breathe rather than hearing one of Church's quick fire retorts, which seemed strange. At first. But as the moment came to a point, suddenly Tucker felt the increasingly familiar sensation of a sharp shock running up his spine, his muscle growing taut and strenuous on him.

Adjusting his hold on his gun, Tucker whirled around on his heels, certain that there was _someone_ watching him. It had been the same intensity, the same strange sensation that he had felt under Lopez's heavy, emotionless gaze.

But even as they turned for a second time, Tucker didn't find anyone there.

"You _have_ to not do that when there's nothing happening," Tucker snapped at Church.

He should have known better.

as soon as the words had left his mouth, there was an undeniable explosion sound as though it came from outside the base. It made Tucker immediately turn in the exit's direction, heart pounding.

"You were saying?" Church jeered. "C'mon, if there's an explosion then we _know_ who's involved."

Tucker hated how often Church was right lately.

* * *

It doesn't exactly require detective work to find Caboose once they crossed the valley. Much like any other base Tucker had been at since his enlistment brought him to Project Freelancer, where a _Red Base_ existed there unstably coexisted a _Blue Base_ on the opposite side of a boxed in space.

Except whatever teams had been stationed at this so-called Valhalla had _really_ lucked out because their crass wasn't flattened and yellowed by unending heat and there were trees and streams instead of canyon walls and an unruly desert surrounding them.

Which meant Blood Gulch had been even _more_ useless than they had complained about the entire time they had been there.

"Okay, what the hell's with _this_ improvement of scenery?" Tucker asked the air as Junior came stumbling in behind him over the small hill.

" _Focus_ , Tucker," Church hissed at him.

"Oh, yeah, that _really_ helps me, focus, hearing you in stereo inside my radio _and inside my freakin' head!"_ Tucker growled back.

"Dude what do you want from me? I'm haunting your armor. Suck it up."

More banter was on the tip of Tucker's tongue but a second explosion interrupted him and he could see a familiar blue armored figure running in circles with flames covering him. Behind him, four angry and revenge inspired Reds were chasing at a considerable distance now that there was a fire hazard.

Actually, Grif wasn't pursuing so much as staying back and yelling at the others what to do. That seemed more comprehensible for the people Tucker had come to know.

At first, Tucker was just taking the scene in when a shock went through him. "Ouch! Okay, Church, that fucking _stings!_ Could you maybe lay off? I already know that Caboose is over—"

The energy meter appeared before Tucker's HUD again and Church appeared on the hill beside him, staring in the opposite direction of Caboose, the Reds, and the general calamity about to unfold. He gripped his sniper rifle like it meant anything. Which, of course, Tucker knew full well that it didn't.

"That wasn't about Caboose it was…" Church trailed off. "I'm not seeing anything."

"Yeah. A ghost with a ghost sniper rifle doesn't get much more range than just a ghost fucking ghosting it, huh?" Tucker scolded sardonically. "Don't fucking _do_ that unless it's necessary. Actually, don't do it at all! That's preferable."

"It _is_ necessary," Church argued, dropping his gun slightly. "Aren't you worried about the murderer?"

"The murderer?" Tucker echoed dumbly.

"We weren't here, Caboose wouldn't have done it, no _way_ it was one of the Reds," Church listed off. "Someone killed Sarge _recently._ And it's no one we know. But it's someone who is almost _definitely_ still here. So _excuse me_ if I happen to feel a little more inclined to pay goddamn attention to our surroundings!"

Tucker squinted at Church a bit, but as much as he hated to admit it — and he _did_ hate to admit almost more than he could express — Church was right. Even when Tucker hadn't been thinking about the _who_ killed Sarge, the _who_ kind of mattered.

A _lot._

Then the fucker ruined it by sending another chill through Tucker's body. "Church! Goddammit! What now!?"

"I _apparently_ have to kick your ass in gear to get you to go save Caboose, too! Jesus, I'm having to do _everything,"_ Church groaned.

" _You?_ It's my body! Saving Caboose or not is _my_ choice!" Tucker reminded his dead-but-not-so-much friend. "And you're draining power or something. Cut the light show out."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Church said, a flicker phasing through his image. After a moment, though, he disappeared all the same.

" _Jackass,"_ Tucker seethed.

 _Fuck face,_ Church boomed inside his skull.

"YOWEE!"

Looking to the distance, Tucker saw that Caboose had fallen and rolled into the running stream of water, which had taken care of the fire but left him surrounded by the Reds. And they had their guns drawn and were probably trigger happy because Caboose, even if not a killer, was still very much _Caboose._

Putting away his rifle, Tucker unsheathed his sword and raced down the hill, only calling back to his son with a quick, "Junior! Stay back! Daddy's kicking some ass!"

Of course, that was about the end of Tucker's planning when it came to paying any recourse forward. So, as per usual, he winged it in true Blue Team fashion.

"Hey! Dickweeds! Back off of my idiot!" Tucker yelled as he bum rushed the four with an alien plasma sword in his hands.

 _Wow, stirring speech,_ Church deadpanned.

"That sounds like Tucker! Is it Tucker? I hope it is Tucker. I don't like Tucker though. I miss Tucker? But I don't want to _see_ Tucker," Caboose babbled without even bothering to roll over to his other side and actually _see_ who was coming to his rescue. Typical.

"Tucker, back _off,_ you saw what he did!" Simmons warned.

"Okay, I think you guys are a little _too_ close to the situation to be dealing out vigilante justice. Because you don't have to _like_ Caboose to know that Caboose didn't _do_ that," Tucker argued fiercely. "Caboose kicks landmines into people's faces or accidentally causes boulders to fall over on people. _Or_ he just has a misfire and team kills. Killing an _enemy_ on purpose? Fucking cold cocking Sarge in a brawl and strangling him to death? That's _not_ Caboose. It's too malicious."

"Are you fucking kidding us?" Grif asked, breathless and putting his hands on his knees.

Tucker looked incredulously at the Red. "How the _hell_ can you be breathless, you literally _just_ moved for the first time while everyone else was chasing Caboose around."

"Leadership is much harder than grunt work," Grif snapped.

"Is it has six blockages from the excessive weight?" Tucker asked, earning a well deserved orange middle finger.

"Come on, guys," Tucker near begged. "We spent all those years and all those crazy adventures together and you're honestly going to tell me that you can't see through all this bullshit at _least_ enough to know something about this whole situation stinks. And it's _not_ Church and _not_ Caboose's feet. For once."

There was a passing moment of silence where Simmons and Grif glanced toward one another as if it was the only communication needed.

Tucker wasn't sure _where_ the situation was going to land them all next. And he was quite a bit nervous to find out.

When no one else on Red Team was making any motions to contest, Lopez stepped up to the other three, his droning voice speaking clearly. Or at least, Tucker _assumed_ it was clearly since he had no idea what the hell he was saying. "No deberíamos escuchar la meant fina. Terminemos con la amenaza Azul de una vez por todas." He gave a pause that was either dramatic or heartbreaking. "Es lo qui el padre hubiera querido."

Before any collective breaths could be taken, Donut nodded his head sagely. "You're _right_ , Lopez. We _have_ been around Tucker long enough to know that he's got a fairly good head on his shoulder."

There was an aggravated noise from the robot but apparently even a computer sometimes lacked words for full expression.

"Really?" Simmons questioned skeptically. "I would say we've known Tucker long enough to guess the opposite."

"Exactly my thoughts, Simmons," Grif huffed.

"Aw, c'mon guys, you sound like you really need a stick up your butts," Donut offered.

"No. Wrong. That's… You _have_ to be doing that on purpose!" Simmons argued angrily.

Tucker was ready to weigh in, having formed quite an opinion on Donut's turns of phrase after spending months with him on missions, when he heard a familiar cooing and clattering behind him. Turning slightly from the Reds, Tucker faced Junior just as the little alien reached the end of the hill and all but crashed into Tucker's leg. He made some noise and then clutched to Tucker's armor meaningfully.

"What's up, little man?" Tucker asked.

"I think I may have an idea," Church spoke up at long last. _Look_ , he echoed inside of Tucker's helmet.

Somehow instinctively knowing what direction Church meant, Tucker glanced back to the running stream where Caboose had been marinating before. It hit Tucker all at once that Caboose had been _strangely quiet_ during the arguments and, when Tucker looked, he could see why.

Caboose was nowhere to be seen. But Tucker had a good idea of where he went.

"Stay close to me, Junior," Tucker ordered his son.

With Red Team bickering like there was no tomorrow, getting past them on heading on his way to the Blue Base was simple enough. And what's more, like a freaking _fantastic_ father, he reached the end of the path without losing sight on Junior even for a second.

Then that aching electric shutter went down Tucker's spine, forcing him to stand ramrod straight and look over his shoulder with the hairs on the back of his neck sticking straight up under his armor. "Church, what the fuck?" he asked as he saw nothing.

"What, you can't see it?" Church asked critically.

Alarmed, Tucker glanced behind him again, looking for anything Church might've meant. But as he looked what caught his attention most was the _absence_ of space. Between them and the nearest cliff was a clearing of grass covered in shadow. There didn't seem to be anything there, but in some way, as the wind blew, the tall grasses split and swayed out of place, out of step with what nature probably intended for them. It was a decent distance, so it very well could have been that Tucker was all just seeing things wrong, but the more he looked, the more he was certain that…

"Tucker!" Church snapped. "Didn't you hear me? What're you looking at! Pay attention, I said that the Reds noticed you're gone so hurry up and get to Caboose."

For a moment, Tucker looked toward the Reds and, sure enough, had four helmets looking right back as a result.

Still, that didn't seem _right._ It didn't seem like enough.

Looking back to the grass, Tucker no longer saw any such discrepancies and furrowed his brow as a result. "Are… Are you _sure_ that's what it was?" he began to question.

"Tucker! Get to Caboose already before they start treating themselves like a firing squad," Church barked out. He then uncharacteristically paused and a wave of nauseating guilt came over Tucker that wasn't his own. "Maybe that's just a Sarge thing…"

As if on cue, a shot off from the Reds narrowly missed them, ricocheting off of the side of Blue Base.

"Nope!" Tucker answered before ducking inside with Junior.

Much like the location itself, the inside of the Blue Base was, by far, nicer and more equipped than any location that Tucker could have even _dreamed_ of being in back when they were in Blood Gulch. The halls were long and wide, lit by a continuous set of blue overhead lights built into the ceiling. It would have been impressive if it didn't give Tucker a strange, sickly feeling in memory of what those same walls and ceiling looked like at Red Base, Sarge down on the floor.

Of course, Red Base didn't have the sound of tinkering and a big lug muttering nonsense to himself.

"Time to get to the bottom of this," Tucker grunted, moving forward toward the noises.

Junior, very obediently, stayed in step with Tucker, clinging to him occasionally.

By the time they reached the end of the hall, the low muttering from Caboose had become an almost audible string of nonsense words and humming to himself. It was still unsettling, even if it wasn't exactly new where Caboose was concerned.

The room itself didn't seem to be anything definitive, maybe a small office once, but it was completely devoid of furniture _now._ In fact its only assets beyond the people standing within it apparently amounted to a pile of what Tucker could only _leniently_ refer to as junk, and a few milk carts turned upside down and leaned against the wall where Caboose was concerning himself with work on… on _something_ vaguely resembling a skeletal exosuit like the kind inside the armors of their robots. Well, Church and Tex's robots.

But the _strangest_ thing was the cocoon shaped device with a bright blue screen at its top and a softening then brightening then softening again glow that seemed to work in rhythm with Caboose's mumblings.

Still not the _strangest_ thing proximity to Caboose had forced Tucker to witness. But, of course, that was fairly stiff competition.

Tucker knew what Church was going to do before the ghostly apparition even appeared by his side, so he allowed Church to have the floor, as it were.

"Caboose! What the _hell_! Isn't that the Epsilon unit? _Agent Washington told you to turn that in!"_ Church's voice was cracking on weird, out of place intervals. And the more it drew Tucker's attention the more he realized, rather suddenly, that for some reason Church was sounding that way out of a certain amount of _fear._

Glancing back at the device, Tucker wondered if it was, indeed, stranger than he had originally given it credit for.

"Church!?" Caboose piped up, standing straight and alert before he clumsily turned his charred armor in their direction. He nearly _leaped_ at what he saw. "I thought I had heard Church! I knew I did! I didn't believe you would be dead, Church! I knew you were my best friend and you would never leave me no matter what the angry police officers said! Oh, Church, I am so happy to see you again!"

As the rambling outburst continued, Caboose flung himself forward from his makeshift work bench and toward the illusionary visage Church was forming of himself. This, of course, led to little more than Caboose passing right through Church but Tucker supposed that at the end of the day it was _kind of_ the thought that counted. _Maybe?_

Church gave an aggravated glance to Tucker, as if the situation could at all be relatable and then turned his attention to Caboose who was swatting his hands through Church. "Hey! Fucking _stop it_ , dude! I'm a ghost, remember?"

"Agent Washington said you were a computer," Caboose hummed in return, though he did stop.

"He was an idiot. _And_ he tried to get me killed. Good thing for him, he was wrong and as a ghost, I can haunt emails and save myself from suicide missions. Dumb fuck. Told him I was a ghost," Church waved his hand nonchalantly, but there was still an _edge_ to his words. Some kind of emotion he wasn't getting through entirely.

"Don't _computers_ send emails? Not ghosts?" Tucker prodded all the same.

"Quiet," Church hissed.

"Yeah, Tucker! _Shhhhhhhhhhh,"_ Caboose added, took a large gulping breath, then continued, " _Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."_

Ignoring Caboose, Tucker turned and squared himself directly with Church. "Okay. So, we've found Caboose. He is the exact same as he always was. Shocking. But that also means the Reds were full of shit about him going rogue and killing Sarge. Now what?"

"We figure out why he was stealing shit to begin with," Church answered. "Hey! Caboose! Why the _fuck_ were you stealing things from Red Base? If you're the only one here, what more shit could you _possibly_ need and have to take from them?"

Caboose tsked at them both, head shaking. "Why, Church, we are not alone in Blue Base. I have had my friend here the whole time! And I have been telling him all about how I have such good friends, like you! And Agent Washington!"

"And me?" Tucker asked.

Staring back at Tucker, Caboose allowed the room to lapse into long, confused seconds of silence. "Okay. Maybe not about Tucker."

"What the fuck, I just saved you from getting skewered by the Reds, too. I'm gonna go get them and tell them you _did_ kill Sarge, how about that?" Tucker snapped in return, being supported by protective growls and _honks_ from Junior at his side.

"What friend are you even talking about here, Caboose?" Church demanded.

"Him! My new friend," Caboose nodded toward the strange device. "Epsilon."

With the mention of the name, the device glowed brighter and longer than any of the times it had lit up before, a strange humming like the purrs of a cat coming from it as it did so. But the longer the phenomenon went, the more unsettled Tucker's heart became. Something about the droning hum quickly turned _sinister_ and _corrupted._ The noise might not have changed in pitch or tone, but the ringing it began to spawn in his ears and the fuzzy way the glow manipulated his vision became nigh unbearable in the moment.

"GAH!" Church cried out loudly, disappearing from Tucker's side and retreating into an out of rhythm, counter hum into Tucker's skull.

It was too much, that shocking pain sprung down Tucker's spine and drove him to his hands and knees in pain.

"Church!" Tucker cried out. It didn't make any sense, something had changed. Something _about_ Church had changed so that he was so unlike any of the times before in Blood Gulch. He felt heavier and intrusive as he possessed Tucker's body and mind. It was infuriating and frightening.

But more than anything, in the proximity of Epsilon, it was _so damn painful._

"Oh no! Where did Church go?" Caboose asked as another wave of shocked pain hit Tucker, immobilizing him. "The scary man may be back!"

"S-scary? C-Caboose! Wait! I…" Tucker groaned, his teeth beginning to chatter as gave in and flattened on the floor. "Church… what're you doing to…?"

 _Oh god. Oh god I'm so sorry. I didn't remember. I didn't want it to be like this. Fuck._ FUCK. _I can stop it hold. Hold on, Tucker. Tucker, just—_

Caboose seemed utterly distracted, mumbling something that made no sense to Tucker. Junior was panicked, by Tucker's side and shaking Tucker by the shoulder as much as possible. His clattering teeth and growing concern was as heartbreaking as they were pride inducing.

"Okay! I will keep him away until Church is safe!" Caboose declared nonsensically. "It is a thing that the best of friends do for friends! And Church — both you Churches — are my friends! Promise. Pinkies. Forever."

"Wait, Caboose… What the fuck are you…" Tucker groaned, reaching up and grabbing the sides of his helmet as if to keep it and, in turn, his skull from splitting in two. "Caboose…"

Without further word, Caboose shoved the weird device into Junior's hands and then took off down the hallway they had entered from. He was giving no indication of what was happening, or what he _thought_ was happening outside of the room. He just left them, alone, and Tucker feeling like his own brains were threatening to leave his skull.

"Church," Tucker managed to get out in a whine as his vision became spotted and more blurry.

 _Tucker, I'm sorry,_ Church repeated. _I think I'm causing this._

"No… _shit,"_ Tucker wheezed before falling unconscious entirely.


	3. Who Lives and Dies

**A/N:** Long time no see! Sorry for the long wait, but in my defense, since I last updated I've now become a professor's teaching assistant and graduate research assistant. So there's a bit of a dip in my amount of freetime and, as you guys can imagine the chapters aren't getting any shorter lol But we're almost done! Just a few twists before we get to the end : )

And a very special thanks to freelancerfeels, Yin, Prim_The_Amazing, xXxDeadEyesNekuxXx, Aryashi, SuperSaiyajin4Vegeta, NotSoHappyHufflepuff, and Dewsparkle! And, of course, my absolute WONDEROUS thanks to my partner in crime, theeffar 3

 **The Things That Wait  
** Chapter Three: Who Lives and Dies

Tucker's vision did not come back in a blink or even a gradient wave. It came back in layers of color and lightening of shadows. It came back in turbulent storms that passed with throbs from his head. And that was the frightening part. The sickening way he didn't know how the time was passed between the blurs of vision as he broke through the waters of consciousness again.

The last time he was back fully to consciousness, Tucker turned abruptly to his hands and knees and barely got his helmet off before vomiting until he was almost certain his stomach had turned inside out.

But the throbbing was gone, the electric shocks through his nerves lessened to a dull pulse.

And Church was finally silent.

"Church," Tucker got out weakly, rocking himself to the side so that he could land safely away from his own mess. His eyes were sore and probably bloodshot, still wet from the strain. "Church, I can't keep doing this. You're fucking killing me."

It wasn't as if Tucker expected a response. It was more like the long nights adventuring with the alien shamans and Donut than it was like having his best friend sitting back and whispering through his very being. It was like talking to the Church who was the friend he missed and not the possessing presence that escaped the chain mail from hell into the back recesses of Tucker's psyche.

Things were simpler before he was at his best friend's mood swings' mercy.

"You're not the one I got killed."

The response was unexpected, like getting a response out of the mirror.

Mostly, though, it was unexpected because it was coming through Tucker's own teeth, using his tongue, the words tasted with his own mouth.

Shocked to the core by the invasiveness of the moment, Tucker sat up straight as a rod and felt his own lungs freeze up with slight horror. Did he make himself sit up? How much control did he have left? Was he just so exhausted and worn down that he had thought up the moment hysterically instead of it actually coming to pass? Tucker did't know. He wasn't even sure how much he cared, because everything about it was horrifying enough on its own accord. He didn't need answers to make the way his sides squeezed and his hairs stood up to back up the already traumatic sense of losing absolute control of himself.

He might have been even further frozen by the moment if a small cooing noise hadn't picked up from behind Tucker and drew his attention away from his own existential horror.

Recognizing the sound, Tucker looked everywhere in its direction for his son and, eventually, found Junior standing in the hallway that had brought them to Caboose's lab to begin with. It was a fairly large distance, especially considering how close they usually kept to each other, but the more Tucker looked the more he understood why that was.

In Junior's tiny hands was none other than the weird pulsating device which had caused everything wrong for the last however-long Tucker had been writhing on the floor.

And that distance felt like only just enough for Tucker to breathe easy without Church continuing to writhe and freak out inside of him.

"Hey, bud," Tucker tried to say soothingly. His voice was croaky and strained from the bitter taste of vomit still, but he pushed through it for his son. "Daddy's not feeling so hot—"

Almost like a whimper, Junior muttered "Bow chicka honk honk."

It was enough to bring Tucker a somber smile. "Heh, yeah. But. I'm better now. Okay? I'm just. Wow I'm so fucking glad you're okay."

He was about to compliment his son for being so smart as to figure out how to rescue them from the turmoil of Caboose's device but, the more Tucker looked, Junior seemed less concerned with the attack or even with the device he was holding.

Junior's attention was actually fixated behind Tucker, and it was enough to make Tucker freeze up again just before turning to see for himself.

Tucker's heart pounded with each centimeter he turned, but once he was completely around and just looking around Caboose's workshop the less terrifying the moment felt. After all, he had just gone through a living hell and it at least got Church to shut up for a stretch. But beyond that, there didn't even seem to be anything within the room. And Tucker was looking pretty hard for what had freaked his son out. But there was nothing.

And then it hit Tucker like a bag of bricks.

There was nothing.

No Caboose. No android body on the slab. Nothing.

There was nothing there but them. It was then that Tucker vaguely remembered Caboose declaring something about distracting or keeping away something.

And the words Church spoke through Tucker's own mouth began to sourly taste on his tongue again.

You're not the one I got killed.

"Fucking — Caboose!" Tucker shouted as he scrambled to his feet.

Horrified, Tucker looked around. The sudden rush to his feet had made him dizzy, but it wasn't going to stop Tucker. Not at that moment anyway.

There was something seriously wrong with what was going on. And Tucker wasn't going to feel any comfort until he saw evidence that everything was chill himself.

Without much more fanfare, and certainly without anything helpful from Church, Tucker extended his plasma sword and gave chase through the halls, only letting himself be bothered just enough by the device as he passed Junior to be reminded that Church was still somewhere deep within his own head.

As he ran down the halls, Tucker swiftly brought his helmet back to his head.

He was on the look out for Caboose.

And, however unfortunately, Tucker was quickly successful.

Then, for a second time, he felt a voice that was not entirely his own escape his throat. But it was more natural, something that was on the tip of Tucker's tongue anyway.

"Caboose?"

His helmet was broken — crushed like a can on the floor. It laid closer to Tucker, like a grim warning at his feet, begging him to not look further in, to follow the red trail of carnage. But, of course, it was far too late for that.

Tucker's vision was absorbed by the sight of gore that waited for them. There was such a stark contrast between the crimson blood still gushing and the bright, royal blue of Caboose's armor. Just like the angle of Caboose's head, how it tilted unnaturally, bruised and bulging beneath the skin, was absolutely no mistaking what Tucker was seeing. What it meant.

Or how that empty, lonely feeling of being alone again felt heavy on his chest as he stared at everything in the world halting and no longer making sense.

All he knew was that, as gunfire and shouting rang out from outside the base, that same emptiness and despair that still threatened to swallow him whole was staved off as it was filled by utter rage and anger.

The plasma sword pulsed at the touch of Tucker's white knuckled grip.

* * *

Hiding Junior was the simple part. Even with the strange, pulsating device that Caboose had kept before, the combined raging in Tucker's head of his own and of Church's pierced through the static like uncomfortableness and pressed forward.

Junior protested in small, groggy yips but he didn't follow them out once they left.

Tucker wasn't in the mood for disobedience, and beyond that he wasn't really himself anymore.

Faintly in the back of his mind, he could recognize the external urge twisting within his head, that pissed off, blow-hard temper that he had tested for years in Blood Gulch was suddenly racing through his own bloodstream. And while he had never necessarily known Church to do anything with that outrage… well, Tucker very much for the first time in his life felt like he had a lot more fight than love in him to give.

Outside of the base, sword drawn, Tucker scanned the valley. With an almost inhuman reflex, though, his senses honed in on the source of the activity closer to Red Base on the complete other side.

The plasma sword pulsed with his rage.

Simmons and Grif were behind the Warthog, as expected. It looked like the tire was blown out, and the closer Tucker got, the more he could see what was sprawled out on the other side of the vehicle — sparking and smoking. It wasn't equipment, but familiar brown armor hollowed out at its center.

Lopez, Tucker thought momentarily before gritting his teeth and skidding behind the nearest rock for cover from whatever the source of the bullets was.

Fuck! This guy's anti-robite, Church snarled between Tucker's ears.

"You fucking talk in my head again I'm going to rip you out of this armor myself," Tucker warned, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to orient himself. "Jesus, Church, that hurts like fucking hell—"

"Oh, good, I was worried you were talking to me."

Both Tucker and, in a sense, Church, squeaked out in surprise. But the momentary shock wore off and Tucker spun around on his heels with his sword out right at the throat of the speaker. Which, in hindsight of course, was a huge damn overreaction considering he was staring right in Donut's visor.

"Donut, what the fuck?" Tucker hissed. "What's going on? What happened to Lopez? Who's attacking? And did they come from Blue Base?"

Donut hummed a bit and cocked his head to the side. "Uh. What order do you want those in?"

"Any!" Church screeched through she speaker of Tucker's helmet It was almost enough to make the turquoise coated marine sigh with relief that Church was benevolent enough to spare Tucker's vocal cords.

"Right, so, Lopez was on his way for the cremation apparently and this guy that Grif and Simmons knew followed him, and then he shot Lopez! And then when Grif tried to hit him with the Warthog he shot out the tire. So then I tried to say something and guns started going off, and—"

"Fuck okay, I get it!" Tucker cut him off as a bullet ricocheted off the other side of their rock. "The guy's an anti-robite—"

"Hey hey hey! You can't fucking make those jokes! I can make those jokes!" Church snapped at him angrily.

"Why? Because you're a robot?" Donut asked innocently.

"What? No. Because I'm Jewish! Fuck you—"

"Everyone shut up, I've got a plan," Tucker demanded, ignoring the throb of his head. "We need answers, I've got a feeling that this asshole, whoever the fuck he is, can give them."

"Oh, speaking of answers, I didn't give you all of them," Donut tried to interject only to get a shushing from both Tucker and Church. "It's weird when you guys are synched together like that."

"No, we're not," they both answered at once.

Not leaving space for the irony to set in, Tucker slowly tilted out from around the rock, looking for the source of the gunfire. The arcs of the bullets were simple enough to trace, but it was all going too fast for Tucker alone. "Church," he began to whisper, but it was without need.

"Got it," Church answered and, suddenly, the HUD of Tucker's helmet responded.

Deliriously, Tucker watched as the shots were traced in blue outlines, all meeting back at a point toward the wall leading into the valley. The Hud squared the area then, after blinking, enhanced and enlarged the space. It revealed an alcove where a gray armored body was perched, a battle rifle — which had a model read out on the HUD — aimed and firing.

"Holy shit, how'd you do that?" Tucker muttered.

"Wait until I show you the intercom function," Church responded cheekily. He then had a heavy pause and low rumblings of curses entered Tucker's head. "I know who that is — fucking goddamn bastard asshole cockroach son of a bitch—"

"Whoa," Tucker uttered in confusion.

"We're not in real trouble, this guy's an asshole but he helped us out before. This is just a misunderstanding. We just… y'know, have to keep everyone from killing each other," Church said confidently.

"Sounds simple enough," Donut replied cheerfully.

"No it doesn't, because Lopez is already dead," Tucker pointed out. "And Caboose—"

"We'll figure out the stuff with Caboose after we straighten this out, Tucker, keep up!" Church snapped.

Donut hesitated, clutching his gun a little tighter. "What happened with Caboose?"

A tight, hot knot twisted itself deep inside Tucker's guts, but finally he could feel that it was completely his own and not some influence or electric tingle through his body. That sickness and unease, that… emotion he couldn't deal with yet. That was all him. No doubt about it.

"Later," Church insisted in a hiss. "First we've gotta stop the gun shit or someone actually will get hurt. And it'll probably be someone actually important and not a stupid robot."

"Now who's the anti-robite?" Tucker huffed.

"Hey, what the fuck did I just say about those jokes?" Church snapped.

"Okay, jesus christ—"

"I just said I'm Jewish!"

"Church, what the fuck is your plan already!?" Tucker all but screamed.

The shooting momentarily stopped from the other side, and it was enough to make Tucker think, however momentarily, that things were about to cool down and they could get some answers, but to his horror instead the valley was filled with a different sound. One of honking and blarghing. And almost immediately, Tucker felt a pain wipe through him stronger than any shock Church had sent toward his spine.

"Junior! What the fuck!?" Tucker cried out, turning to see his son bounding over from the Blue Base with Caboose's weird contraption in hand.

He just knew that the shooter saw Junior and had been stunned into inaction as well, though probably not for long.

Tucker's first instinct was to throw himself toward his son, make sure there was no clear line of sight between the shooter and his halfling son. But he didn't move on it. He stood flat footed, shocked with his own inaction, as a quiet, low, sense of self preservation grew louder than his fatherly intent.

And then, suddenly, Tucker felt sick with disgust at what he could only assume was Church's deepest and ugliest intrusion into Tucker's senses yet. Because no one — not even Church — had the right to override that sensibility he felt deep inside toward his son. How dare Church make it otherwise.

But for all that time had stopped, it suddenly, quickly, caught up once more all too quickly. Not with the sound of a bullet but with a motion of pink at Tucker's side as Donut stepped out into the clearing nonchalantly.

"What the fuck are you doing!?" Church's voice cracked.

"There's a kid on the battlefield, no one would shoot with a kid on the battlefield. It's totally against the rules," Donut reasoned. "It's like I tell Tucker all the time, there's all kinds of fun things like filling other man's holes with your bullets that you can't do with children around, that's just wrong. Besides, you said that we don't have to worry about this guy—"

Tucker heard the words but he wished he hadn't. It made the image too hard to even comprehend once it all came crashing down with that very sound of a shot that he had dreaded would end the time freeze before.

Donut's body jerked uncomfortably at the sound of armor cracking and hollowing out under the pressure of artillery shells. A straight shot, aimed with sniper's intent, right between the breast plates which had been far oversized for Donut's frame anyway — loose enough to let the already questionable gap over their chests seem even more inviting.

In a blink, a red dust filled the air where Donut had been standing, and suddenly Donut was on the ground, flat on his back with his uncocked pistol laying out of his reach.

The blood was sprinkled over Donut's armor plating, but the real horror of it was the way it bubbled out from the under armor links between the plates, how it filled the gaps like floodwaters, bubbling and hissing at the sudden and immense exposure to air.

Screaming was happening around Tucker — from the Reds, from his son — but Tucker couldn't scream.

Tucker didn't have control of his mouth to do so. And it wasn't because of Church that time.

Sword drawn, his feet racing beneath him, Tucker was covering ground until, in what seemed like a moment's notice, he was at the wall which this so-called Agent Washington had been barreled down in. He was standing, rifle still aimed in the direction of the others, like he somehow hadn't seen or heard Tucker approaching from his flank. It was the epitome of coming across someone redhanded.

By the time Agent Washington was looking his way, Tucker was slicing through half of his rifle in one swoop. Then he sent his elbow into Washington's helmet with another.

Off his footing, Washington stumbled back, but he used what was left of his gun to block another blow from Tucker's sword. He seemed determined to use the action to disarm Tucker, letting the blade sink through the metal before twisting.

Tucker had a grip like none other on his sword, a thought that almost immediately made him think of Donut. And then it was followed by a pang of that hot writhing emotion he was avoiding again.

Stupid, Tucker thought just before Washington hit him with a barrage of fists and elbows, well placed to knock the wind out of Tucker and break his stance.

When Washington pulled out a bowie knife, however, Church had apparently had enough of being a passenger.

"Fuck this! HEY YOU ASSHOLE!" Church screamed from Tucker's armor before lighting up in a bright flash of white right between them. "DID YOU FUCKING FORGET SOMETHING!?"

Genuinely shocked, Washington dropped his shoulders and stepped back in surprise. "Alpha— but… how—"

Seizing the opportunity, Tucker pivoted through Church's image and hit Washington front on, connecting with the nose of his helmet and sending his head flying back into the cement wall.

And like that, Washington was out at Tucker's feet, and Tucker's heart was racing.

Not the least of which because of the sobbing he could hear meters away in the valley.

Church flickered a bit before disappearing, or whatever it was that he did to retreat back behind Tucker's body and armor.

It didn't matter f he could be seen or not, though, because Tucker was raging internally. He hated Church, how could he tell Donut that this fucker was safe? How could he not have known?

And that was just the hate that wasn't from Tucker himself.

Pushing aside the complexities of sharing a headspace with Church, Tucker turned back, breathing hard and panted, and looked to where he could see Simmons and Grif gathered around. At where Donut had fallen.

"Fuck, oh my god, jesus, Donut…" Tucker wheezed.

Gulping down as much air as he could, Tucker raced out toward the others, trying to not selfishly think about how terrible it was for his son to have to witness another dead friend twice in the same day, and instead kept his mind on his friend. God, his friend — Donut was his friend, had become something like his best friend in their time in the desert and beyond. Everyone liked Donut. Everyone—

Grif was enraged. Tucker knew it as he approached because Grif wasn't talking. He was standing beside Simmons as Simmons fretted over Donut's chest wound. Simmons was talking, blabbering incoherently really, but Grif was coldly attentive to what was going on. He looked up at Tucker almost immediately.

"Did you kill him?"

"No," Tucker said. "He's unconscious. Is… Is Donut…"

"He got shot in the goddamn heart," Grif snarled. "What do you think, Tucker? Show me where this backstabbing motherfucker is so I can kill him—"

"I… I think this is all a mistake," Tucker said, though for the life of him he couldn't figure out why.

"What's a mistake?" Grif asked without a moment's hesitation.

"Shooting Donut…" Tucker said. "It doesn't make sense. He didn't have reason to— I mean, he was entering the valley through the wall, right? Whoever killed the others was already here. This is all a mistake. When Washington was with us, he was a cold motherfucker, sure, but he trusted us for some reason, right?"

"Us…?" Grif repeated, his voice growing only harsher with each uttered syllable. "You weren't there, Tucker. And neither was Donut. And now one of you is dead, and… fuck what am I saying, who am I even talking to? Why would you not kill Washington?"

Tucker felt strangely out of touch with his senses as he turned his head ever so slightly from Donut's body and toward Grif's angry, screaming face. He could hear a ringing in his ears, like there were still gunshots going off, but in his head rather than around him.

"Because I owe him," Tucker didn't say, though it came out of his mouth all the same.

Grif was furious. "Who the fuck are you?"

Blankly, hollowly, Tucker shook his head. "I… I don't know."

The device in Junior's hands pulsed with an energy Tucker could feel more than he could see. And a headache intensified inside Tucker's skull, seemingly tearing him in half from two different directions.

"Washington killed Donut in a firefight and we'll get him for that," Tucker didn't say. "Believe me, I want it as bad as you. But we need answers and he's about the only guy I can think of right now in this three ring circus who can give them. Because he did this, but we don't know who did Sarge or who did Caboose."

"Caboose is dead!?" Simmons all but shrieked. "What the fuck is happening!? Why the fuck is it happening!?"

Tucker reached up and gripped the side of his helmet, eyes squeezed shut. "Why the fuck did I open that chainmail?" he groaned through the throbbing.

"Is that supposed to be a fucking joke!? What the hell's wrong with you?" Grif demanded.

"A lot right now," Tucker answered, feeling sickly again. "A whole hell of a lot."

* * *

Agent Washington was unconscious still as Grif and Simmons hovered nearby.

For precautions, the Freelancer's weapons had been removed, as well as his helmet, gauntlets, and boots. Church seemed particularly insistent on those points since — according to him — Freelancers would have weapons hidden in every spot they could manage. And any questioning of that point earned a defiant who has the most experience with Freelancers from the ghost of a friend.

Tucker's head felt like it was filled with cotton balls or else he would have had a feistier response to such a claim.

Grif was standing further away from the Freelancer, Tucker sitting next to where Washington was tied up in the brig. But he was still closer than Simmons, who seemed morose and almost ill with worry from his spot near the exit.

There was still a thick smell of iron in the air, be it from injuries of everyone in the room or lingering from the horrific sights they had been exposed to involving their once-friends. Tucker couldn't tell anymore.

And Church seemed strangely fixated on Washington rather than the far more important things surrounding them.

Things only finally stepped back into motion when, beside them, Washington stirred again.

Immediately, everyone tensed — Grif cocking his rifle while Tucker got to his feet and activated the plasma sword from its hilt.

For a moment, after turning his body as much as he could in his restraints, Washington seemed to be processing things. His wrists twisted in their binds and his feet pressed against their ropes to separate at the ankles but all was to no avail. By the time his eyes opened, he was angered.

Which was fine by Church, who preferred when everyone met him at his level of anger.

Tucker was more reluctant to celebrate.

Washington's eyes fell on Tucker first, flickering with unfamiliarity and confusion, before he glanced instead to the remaining Reds. His scowl regained its full judgment and he twisted and contorted himself as much as he could. "Let me go. Now," he demanded.

"Fuck you, dude," Grif snarled back.

"You fucking killed Donut," Simmons' voice cracked with emotion and anger like Tucker was unused to seeing from him.

"You betrayed me first!" Washington bellowed. Somehow, even restrained and on his side, Washington conveyed an unhingeness and rage that Tucker had never really felt from someone before. At least, not from anyone who meant it squarely for Tucker—

"Fuck you, dude! If anyone betrayed anyone, you betrayed me when you left me and Tex for dead! Fuck. You!" Tucker did not scream in a rage, did not nearly take a step forward with his sword aloft. But his body did all the same. And regaining his composure was all Tucker could do to grab onto his limbs and step his body back. "What the fuck, Church."

Washington for a moment seemed genuinely alarmed, his eyes widening slightly as he looked Tucker's way. Then he just looked confused. "Alpha?"

"I'm not a computer!"

Tucker reached up and held a hand to the helm of his helmet. He could feel the gazes of everyone around him, especially Grif and Simmons.

"Tucker, what the actual hell?" Grif demanded.

"I don't know!" Tucker snapped through gritted teeth.

"There's someone else in there!?" Washington yelled. "After all this, you still let Alpha implant on someone else? Haven't you figured it out? DIdn't you listen to anything I told you all before you stabbed me in the back!? The AI will fuck with people's brains! Not to mention the Meta—"

"Stabbed you in the back? Fuck off! You killed us! After all we did for you!" Simmons screamed.

"I told you to give Epsilon to the UNSC after we destroyed the storage facility! I told Caboose that doing that would make sure all the people responsible for playing us like puppets would see the justice they deserved! And instead of doing that, instead of ending all of this fuckery, you abandoned me and then left me to be imprisoned to rot. So yes you stabbed me in the back, and I don't give a fuck about anything we all did together before until I get Epsilon back from Caboose before the Meta fucking gets it!" Washington growled. "And what's more, Alpha is still alive, and you left him to possess and overwrite the brain of some other unsuspecting idiot!"

"Liar!" Church roared.

"I'm not unsuspecting!" Tucker added, though he could barely process what it meant. "And only people who know me are allowed to call me an idiot." Gaining more and more confidence in his own words again, Tucker stepped toward Wash. "And, by the by, Caboose is dead, and until we get some answers you can forget us answering any of your questions."

For a moment, Washington seemed to freeze in place. His face drew back in shock and he looked at Tucker in slight horror. "Caboose… Caboose is dead?" he asked, almost solemn and regretful considering his earlier anger and bombast.

"He was… basically torn apart," Tucker answered lowly. "And Sarge was beat up and strangled. There's some… some kind of monster involved in all of this. But you still killed Donut — our friend — so until you can give us a clue as to what's going on, forget us giving you any answers."

Without a moment's hesitation, Washington tried to twist himself into an upright position. "Where''s Epsilon?"

"Dude, did you not just hear what we fucking said?" Grif asked in disgust.

"You don't understand," Washington shook his head. "Free me, take me to Epsilon. Everything you just told me… the Meta is already here. He's killing your friends—"

"The ones that you aren't," Simmons hissed.

"—and he'll kill all of us to get to the remaining fragments," Washington continued, glancing toward Tucker warily. "Including yours."

"I'm no one's fragment," Church answered darkly.

"Wasn't Epsilon with your kid?" Simmons suddenly spoke up.

Then, despite Church's outrage and darkness, Tucker's body was suddenly immensely feeling, and a tingling chill rode down through his spine and limbs.

"Junior," he thought out loud — the first time he was allowed to really think of his own priorities since Church began to take over the the steering wheel.

* * *

Church… why weren't you worried about Junior?

The thought was not voiced, but Tucker knew it didn't have to be. Not with how strangely connected they were. Not with how shocks of pain proceeded movements and voices that were not his own.

He had been ignoring the itch of a thought about what was happening to him. No one wants to believe that they are being used as a meat sack for someone thy thought of as a friend.

But in that moment, as his fatherly instincts overrode any further dictation from Church himself, Tucker knew he couldn't ignore the obvious any longer.

Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong with him. And Church was the source of it.

Not my thing to worry about, Church replied flatly. There was no denial, not even any feigned confusion about the fact that he was dictating so much of what they were doing all of the sudden.

And that was telling in its own way.

Have… Have you ever done this to someone before? Tucker dared to think.

He could almost feel the coldness from the man — the ghost, the computer, the whatever — that he had thought of as his best friend for so long.

I don't remember. Not on purpose, Church admitted. It's too familiar to be new. But I'm not… Tucker, I don't want to…

What happened to people when you did this before? When you made their body do things and think things they didn't want? Tucker pressed, knowing that any anger and upset he felt was naked and open for Church to infiltrate inside his brain like everything else.

I don't know. I think… I think I'm just… me again. Eventually, he confessed.

"That's not happening," Tucker swore through his own tongue again. He was determined and pissed which almost made up for the betrayal and disgust.

Church wasn't fighting back again, so Tucker just continued forward, sword unsheathed, looking desperately for his missing son. Something that Church probably could have helped with, but he wasn't offering and Tucker sure as hell wasn't going to ask.

And that was when they finally came across Junior.

The alien child was clutching the Epsilon unit close to his chest, terrified, as he should have been. There was something hardly visible, but still obscuring the area behind Junior.

"Fuck! Active camo!" Tucker cried out to the others behind him in warning. "Junior, duck!"

His son did as ordered which opened Tucker up to a leap through the air, sword barred as he swung down for the spot where he had noticed the obscuring shimmer. Sparks flew on contact with something metallic and angry. But, to Tucker's surprise, it wasn't the end of the moment.

As the active camouflage began to fail, the free arm of the perp flew up, grabbed Tucker by his shoulder, and proceeded to suplex him in a move that immediately made the aqua marine begin to see stars.

"What the fuck, no one said the Meta could do that!" Tucker whined, still trying to get his bearings as he pushed to sit up.

"As far as I know, he still can't," a familiar voice said lowly.

Church, for once, was utterly speechless.

Tucker turned over to his knees almost immediately, expecting a flash of black armor to go with that familiar sound. "Tex!?"

He didn't receive what he thought, however, because it wasn't that at all. Instead, there stood a massive armored body with a domed yellow helmet, and intimidating white glaring armor. Something about it, the bulk or the weapon or just the low rumble that escaped with every breath. But it was terrifying and it wasn't Tex.

Not her body at least.

"Buenos días, cockbites," her voice came from the armor. "Guess who's back?"


	4. Showdown

A/N: I know, I know! It's been so very long and you guys deserved these updates SO much aster than you got them and I'm forever sorry about that. It has been a wild and crazy year, but this particularly wild and crazy story is at last at its end 3 I hope it's to your guys' liking. I cannot thank you enough for your patience and kindness throughout this whole process.

And a very special thanks to freelancerfeels, Yin, madelinescribbles, Prim_the_Amazing, SuperSaiyajin4Vegeta, and oceanlover4ever! And, of course, my absolute WONDEROUS thanks to my partner in crime, theeffar3

 **The Things That Wait  
** Chapter Four: Showdown

Tucker was not entirely sure what to make of the scene, but he did know that the moment Tex's voice rang out across the short distance Church _lost_ it. And he did so within Tucker's own skull.

The same electrical surges, the same immutable pain like hot white pokers digging and burrowing through his body like angry vines took over Tucker's entire person and sent him to the ground with a howl of pain. He felt like his soul was being ripped from his chest and despite every fiber of his being, despite every _painful urge_ he felt to resist the hostile force within him, his body moved entirely against his will.

" _Tex!_ " Tucker's voice cried out, keening and painful with an emotion and desperation that was far from the parental rage and protectiveness that Tucker felt deep within his own guts. "How!? What the fuck! I thought you were dead — I thought _all_ of you was dead… are… are you inside the Meta now?"

The black armor stood stoically away from them. She gave only enough movement that it was clear she was watching the twitching, painful display that Tucker and Church were putting on, but she didn't _move._ And, bitterly, Tucker noted that she also wasn't _helping._

"Church, what the fuck are you _doing?_ Do you even have any idea?" Tex asked critically. "Hell, does _Tucker_ know?"

Know? What didn't he _know_? Tucker's brain hurt too much to contemplate and the questions themselves caused a forceful rejection. It was like thoughts were ready to counter them before he could even bring them up in his own mind.

"It was one thing when you didn't know who you were and you fucked around with Caboose's brain carelessly," Tex huffed, head tilted. "This? To your best friend? It's pretty fucking heartless, Alpha."

"How fucking _dare_ you—" Tucker's voice snarled, tearing his throat in strange, contorted ways to strangle out a voice that it was not used to.

"Oh, believe me. After everything I've already done. I dare," Tex countered. "And I'm not _inside_ the Meta." She stepped forward, head lowering as her voice altered to a deeper but hauntingly familiar tenor. " _We_ are the Meta."

"For _fucksake!"_

"Grif, don't!"

Tucker's mind was still swimming through a thick bog as the voices carried across the distance and he couldn't so much as register them before three booming shots sounded off and two chinks sparked out from the so-called Meta's armor, causing Tex to stumble off course for a few steps.

In the surprise, Tucker regained his faculties enough to swivel his head in the direction of the shotgun blasts and saw, to his great shock, Grif with his gun aimed right at Tex. Behind him, Simmons was covertly grabbing Junior and Epsilon to pull out from the line of fire.

"I. Am _so._ Fucking. _SICK AND TIRED_ of losing my _friends_ to your goddamn _bullshit!"_ Grif roared at Tex.

"No one here is _friends_ ," the deep, rumbling tone of O'Malley's voice claimed darkly before lifting up a gnarly looking weapon with a hideously sharp blade attached to it.

Tucker pushed to his feet. "Dude, what the fuck? After everything, how can you say that— Oh, right, possessed evil fuck's in charge. Hey! This is what happened last time when you stole my baby and tried to take over the universe. Like, _what the fuck?_ Tex, why'd you _willingly_ go through _that_ bullshit again?"

Grif tilted his head enough to acknowledge Tucker at his side. "So I'm guessing _you're_ in the driver's seat again, right?" he asked somewhat facetiously.

"Are you kidding? Chicks love hotshot drivers. That's why I'm always in the…" Tucker began to counter only to trail off at the thought.

Driving wasn't what Grif was talking about and the haunting insinuation was only beginning to dawn on him. How often, lately, had he _not_ been in control? How often was the painful resistance not something he was putting up.

How long was he willing to ignore the fact that his best friend was doing something unthinkable, unforgivable, inside of his own body? How long was he willing to let that kind of violation continue to stand?

The questions weren't exactly going to receive much thought at the moment, however, because he was pulled into the moment by the startled cries of his son.

Junior pulled away from Simmons, confused and afraid for obvious reasons, and that led to the strange computer within his arms to begin vibrating and pulsing with a strange blue light. The same thing that had almost knocked Tucker and Church flat before in Blue Base.

It seemed to have a very _different_ reaction for Tex, however, as her armor rather surprisingly faded into a ghostly white and a colorful array of lights flickered around her head with ghastly whispers.

"There it is" "He's here" "Brother" "Epsilon" "We need" "Before Alpha" "Before him" "Before creator" "Get" " _Now!"_

A dark, feral growl came out from the armor's system before it began to hunch back in a predatory position.

"Oh, _fuck me,"_ Grif hissed before beginning to fire in succession at Tex's strange new body. "Simmons! Get the fuck out of here! Leave the kid! Get away! Fuck! _FUCK!"_

Tucker, completely lost by the shift, began rapidly shaking his head as Tex's body disappeared into a blurry active camouflage. "No! Simmons! Get Junior out of here, please—!"

No longer left lead footed by the surging pain of muscles pulling in two different directions, Tucker dove after Tex. He predicted her position purely on the fastest way to get to Junior and, as much as it sickened him, Tucker had been absolutely on the mark with his assessment.

With his sword, Tucker was able to spear through Tex's calf, leading to a piercing, animalistic howl that eventually led to the active camouflage dropping entirely. But the body still wasn't stopping.

Instead, with an aggressive turn, the new Meta flipped around on her remaining good leg, grabbed Tucker and sent him hurdling into the ground. It was, once again, enough to knock the air out of his chest and leave him flush on the ground. But rather than a greeting, Tex stood over him, weapon lifting with the blade turned in Tucker's direction.

He felt his heart sink in betrayal.

 _"Tex,"_ Tucker said, as useless as the words felt on his tongue then.

The plea, surprisingly enough, gave them a moment's reprieve. Tex's arm was held back, still and sure as ever, but it didn't lunge. Not yet. There was some _thought_ behind it. Hesitation.

Of course, it was quickly ruined by a static flicker of light over Tucker's shoulder. One too familiar and too _stupid_ to appreciate just how much he had fucked up by showing himself again.

Immediately, Tex shook herself from her moment of actualization when Church flared up and she swung down with the sword right for Tucker's throat.

But, fortunately, that moment lost to hesitation had been enough for the plasma sword's failsafe to kick back in and the blade disappeared with an electric fizzle through the air in response.

When the metal sheath of the blade contacted with Tucker's armor it didn't take Tex — or whatever it was that she had become — long to figure out what sh had just been robbed of. And she quickly flew into a rage, ramming the hilt into the metal plates covering Tucker's chest again and again.

"Ow— _Ow fuck!_ Stop, okay!? I have sensitive nipples! _You're going to leave a bruise, Tex!_ " Tucker cried out.

 _Tucker._

The otherness began to set in. The thuds of Tex's fist and the metal hilt of his sword hitting against his chest was even beginning to dull within an instant. A haziness came over his senses, and he knew almost immediately that he was, once more, losing control.

 _Tucker, I've got this. I just need to see what she wants — no. I know. She wants Epsilon. Everyone wants Epsilon. That means we probably should too—_

"Stop it! Just fucking _stop_ it already!" Tucker cried out. His head was splitting open, too full of differing emotions, and his hands curled defensively up. Not to protect his body from the physical attack, but to his helmet and head in a vain effort to protect himself from being torn in two by the conflict threatening to remove his very personhood. "Just leave me alone! _Just stop fucking me up, both of you!"_

Then, like the flip of a switch, Tucker opened his eyes.

And they weren't his eyes anymore.

"Tex," Church said, reaching up with Tucker's uncurled hand. It was easy to reach her face, she was straddling his waist, still punishing his — _Tucker's_ — body with her fists and Tucker's stolen weapon. She didn't stop, but she didn't pull away either. "I get it now. I get why all the times didn't work before."

"No. No, you _don't,"_ she seethed in a terrifying cacophony of voices.

"I _do!_ This can work now, _we_ can work now, don't you get it?" Church begged almost sweetly through Tucker's vocal cords. "I found the missing piece — it wasn't the other fragments. Fuck'em. Fuck Epsilon. Fuck O'Malley. Fuck _all_ of them. We just need to be in _here_ now. Me and you. I found where we work. Where _both_ of us are wanted and known, and the others won't belong, aren't even _known._ We won't miss pieces. And as long as we have each other—"

And, suddenly, even in air, even without Tex's monstrous new form no longer punching him, Tucker felt like he was drowning.

There was a glaze to his consciousness, a slipping away from everything he knew, everything he _was._ The pools were like a warm bath that washed over him, comforted him and made him feel…

It wasn't painful like all of the times before. It was comfortable, not to feel, to just go with the path of least resistance. The words and actions were like something he was watching passively. Only passively.

He felt no control over himself anymore, but… was that so wrong? Was that so _bad?_

If Tex had any answer, Tucker didn't get to hear it because an explosive _BOOM_ shot out through the air, and Tex's body jerked to the side, falling aside from Tucker's body. Church felt panic and horror at it, but not Tucker.

He didn't feel a thing.

"He's talking _crazy_ shit, like he's not even himself—"

"I'm familiar."

The voice wasn't entirely new, but Tucker couldn't place it, couldn't work up the energy to try.

"What are you doing!?"

Suddenly, Tucker's body was jerked up, then everything in his vision went black again.

* * *

Tucker was conscious, but his body wasn't.

The disorientation that took into effect because of that seemingly simple, seemingly horrifying fact, was like everything he ever knew was being ripped from the fabric of his being.

And the reason he knew that, was because he could hear his feelings being put into words by someone else.

"Mine was like that," the familiar but unplaceable voice continued. "My implantation. I don't know if I wasn't prepped. I don't know if I was weak or the AI was strong or… I don't think that mattered. I think the whole idea has been fucked from the beginning. You're not putting just extra information in your head. You're not just putting a _piece_ of someone into your own head. You're putting another person there. You're putting someone else into the passenger seat of a car they never wanted to go in to begin with, and then asking them to not try to take the wheel and pull into the other lane even if we're going somewhere they don't want to go."

Inside of himself, Tucker whimpered. It was low and mewling, like a child frustrated in time out.

He got it. He wasn't in the driver's seat anymore.

"That doesn't sound ethical," Simmons' voice added, sounding aghast and uncomfortable.

"There's no ethics involved with it. That's why the whole thing was getting flushed during the investigations. And, well, we're all now considered a part of that. Congratulations."

"Hey, _fuck you_ , we had nothing to do with any of this before _you_ and your _bullshit_ came along, you fucking asshole!" Grif cracked.

"I came along to you guys because you were _already_ caught up in all of this, don't you get it? We were already caught up in this. I'd say I'm sorry, but, well, you told me to be honest. And I'm having trouble feeling sorry for _anyone_ anymore."

"Wow. Now I definitely trust you," Grif hissed.

Tucker got it, though.

He did, even if only peripherally. His body tensed without his mind coordinating with it and that numbness and general fog that possessed him was overwhelming. He felt no sorrow for anyone else.

The last time he had empathy for someone, that _someone_ took over his body and his _life._

And he wanted it back — he wanted it _all_ back!

 _Why? What would you even do with it?_

The darkness that already blocked Tucker's vision was growing to more and more of his senses. Even the chatter of voices outside of himself were dying now, drowned by the inky blackness.

Everything except the other voice.

It was only them.

Tucker didn't have anyone else to come in for the assist.

 _You had your life for the last, what, twenty-four years? What the_ hell _do you have to show for it?_ Who _do you have to show for it? Me. I have someone. I have a name, I have someone I fucking_ love _, and I have a legacy. And I'll have more when I have a chance, when I'm a whole person again._

If he had had any senses left to feel, Tucker would have felt a punch to his proverbial gut.

Instead he was just pissed.

"Yeah? You have all those things? Because from where I'm at, looks to me like your ex-girlfriend would fucking _murder_ all your guys' friends to get away from you and the people who _did_ care about you are fucking dying because of it!" Tucker screamed within his own mind. "I mean, that's pretty fucking _awful_ in my book."

 _Pointing to my flaws isn't going to make up for the fact that you don't have anything to say for yourself or your legacy._

"Yeah, well fuck you. _Saying_ you did better than me doesn't make it all that real for you either, asshole."

There was a throb of _something_ Tucker could feel — like a burning in his chest.

 _I am not here to only criticize, Tucker. I am your friend, after all. What I'm offering for you is the opportunity to_ do _something greater. To_ make _something with the life you've wasted. You've already helped so much. Now I simply want to, well, offer you the opportunity to take part in a legacy that is already great. That_ we _can make greater together._

For a moment, the throbbing heat felt so good, felt _so_ warm, Tucker was hesitant to even say anything. The numbness had been so excruciating that he couldn't part with the idea of the uncertainty of rejecting it all together.

 _But. You don't have to— no. No you_ definitely _have to. We've come so far, Tucker, you just—_

And, suddenly, the throbbing gave way to simple, brutal clarity.

"You're… you're not Church," Tucker realized slowly. "Not anymore. You're not… You're not _him_. You're not my friend. And you don't want my _help_ , you want me to just. I don't know. _Disappear._ You want the driver's seat! Who the fuck _are_ you?"

Just as Tucker had worried, his body faded into the obscure senselessness again. His chest did not burn, his inky blackness did not recede. He was, unquestionably, nothing.

He barely existed.

He actually might not have existed at all.

"Who are you?" he tried again, desperate for at least the other voice. If nothing else. "What email from hell did I open?"

 _I am Leonard Church,_ the voice answered. _I am a piece of his consciousness. I once was Alpha. We all were. But I am now a smaller piece. I was rendered incomplete by vile and cruel tortures. Now what I am is insignificant. I might as well be Alpha, though, they designated me as Sigma._

Tucker felt horror like he hadn't known before. "Is Church — the _real_ Church—"

 _I AM THE REAL CHURCH._

"No, dude, fuck you, is _my_ Church with Tex? Did they… everyone who died…" Tucker searched for another way out, but slowly he began to accept what he had known all along.

The friends he had loved, they were gone. What was in their place was as unnatural as the computer chip that was seeking to take over his own brain.

 _We have a chance to get everything back. To get_ them _back. They would be here inside of us,_ with _us, if we work together, Tucker._

"Fuck that," Tucker hissed back. "You can't bring back someone who's gone—"

Then, surprising Tucker, Sigma began screaming through every inch, every nerve of Tucker's body.

* * *

The second time Tucker woke up, it was to a distantly familiar face starring over him.

"Agent… Washington?" he asked groggily.

With his words, Tucker felt pangs of pain but the one thing he didn't feel, was the push and pull of someone — or _something_ — else controlling the strings of his body. For the moment, Tucker was himself.

"Holy shit I'm—!" Tucker began to yell only for the Freelancer agent's scowl to grow even _more_ serious. It was the sort of look that Tucker's mother would have _killed_ to be able to pull off.

"You're momentarily in control," Washington warned him. "After the whole screaming incident, it was the only way I was going to get your friends to trust me and help us _all_ to get the hell out of here."

The words didn't make sense when they were pulled all together like that for Tucker. He squinted and waited for the agent to clarify but, well, Church had warned that the guy was cryptic.

And he was. Even if it _hadn't_ been Church.

"Church isn't in my head," Tucker explained. "Not my Church."

That, at least, got a look of sympathy from Washington. "No. He's not."

Tucker squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm being possessed by a computer chip and it doesn't even have the decency to be a sexy anime girl. Where's the fairness in that?" While, in the _good_ days that was likely to lead to hours-long debate about anime and sexy ladies, it got nothing from Agent Washington. Tucker groaned and opened his eyes again to look at the man again. "How come my ride along isn't in the front seat right now? How'd you do that?"

"Crudely," Washington answered before nodding to the contraption around Tucker's head that, somehow, he hadn't noticed beforehand. "I got your Simmons friend to get every magnetic device in Valhalla and make a helmet hairdryer out of it." He paused for a moment. "Actually, I hadn't asked for the helmet hairdryer but… apparently they had one still from your friend's stay at their previous base."

"Sounds like Donut," Tucker agreed. He then looked at Washington more angrily. "Guess we could have asked _him_ for permission if you hadn't shot him."

Washington actually flinched at that. "I deserve that."

"You deserve a fist to the face," Tucker hissed. But there was still a lot to process and more pressing matters literally surrounding him. "Uh, putting all these magnets around my head when there's like. Tech and stuff in there… is that safe?"

"It seemed worth the temporary fix until we got through working out the rest of the plan with the Meta," Washington partially shrugged.

"What!?" Tucker's voice cracked. "You mean Tex? The person killing our _other_ friends out of left field? Fuck off!"

"No, not Texas. Texas — and all the AI — were… different before reunification in their current body," Washington said lowly. "Their current body which happened to actually be a very good friend of _mine_ before the… incident left him catatonic and nonfunctional without their influence."

For a moment, Tucker didn't know what to say to that. But Washington seemed to notice the sympathy on Tucker's face, and abruptly wanted none of it.

"All of this has a chance to end now. But only if you can get your passenger to agree to terms," Washington said.

"Uh. Which are?" Tucker asked.

Washington stared back at Tucker's eyes for a long time, though he didn't seem to be lost for words. Instead, he was buying time.

The door to the room whisked open, and Tucker's weakened body could barely turn to see what was coming. Which made him even more surprised when it was Tex — or the _Meta_ — holding the device which supposedly kept this mysterious Epsilon. The very one that Tucker knew his son was unwilling to give up before.

"Junior? Where is he? What'd you do?" Tucker demanded as the behemoth walked into the room.

"He parted with the Epsilon Unit under the circumstances of saving his father," Tex said without any hum of familiarity or mild affection toward Tucker that the trooper was used to.

"We just need you and Sigma to part ways and for him to retrieve Epsilon from within the unit," Washington explained. "Then, they both can join the Meta." He glanced down to Tucker significantly. "Do you want control back?"

Without ever realizing it, Tucker let a frustrated tear fall down his cheeks before nodding weakly. "Yes, _fuck yes,_ please."

"Then you have to be in control," Washington said, stepping away from Tucker's side and walking over to where the Meta stood with the Epsilon unit. "You have to pull yourself up and out of the magnetic field and step over here for the AI to do their thing."

Tucker's neck muscles strained already just from the limited motion he had already resorted to. "W-why can't you just bring it to me?" he begged.

"Because you have been giving up control this whole time," Washington informed him. "To the people you thought were your friends. You didn't take any direction. And that's why Sigma was able to get this far with you."

"It is simple to relinquish control," the Meta spoke. "It is difficult to take it back."

Silence fell over the room as Tucker assessed his situation. Everything hurt and ached, like he had never used his limbs before. But the Freelancer-fucks were only three or more steps away from him and the makeshift magnet helmet giving him what little relief he was feeling.

"Come on, Tucker," Washington said, edged with some annoyance. "If you want this at all, you could at least step forward and take it."

"Easy for _you_ to say!" Tucker gritted out, moving his fingers and toes in increments, practicing for the real test of his courage. "I… I feel heavy and… _wrong."_

Tucker squeezed his eyes shut again, this time to concentrate, but he caught a small " _I know"_ from Washington that only served to infuriate him more.

It wasn't _fair,_ it wasn't _right_ that he had to fight for his body to be in service to him again, but more than that it wasn't right that he needed to prove himself.

What more did he have to prove? He was the _goddamn chosen one!_

He had the sword-key, he had a son who rocked, he had actually been _promoted_ somehow weirdly enough.

Maybe none of it was supposed to happen. Maybe none of it was supposed to be real. But fuck, he'd _lived_ it already. That was about as real as anyone could get.

And even more than that, all the shit they had gone through together in Blood Gulch and beyond? They lived that too. That's why it hurt to see his friends gone, to see them hurt. That was why it hurt to have his love for Church betrayed and taken advantage the way it was.

The righteous anger worked as a fuel, straining against the sluggish pull of muscles and bones that resisted Tucker's control. And it sent him moving forward, even as the hum of magnets disappeared for the devastating _sting_ of the AI voice in his head once again.

 _I accept the offer,_ Sigma said.

His voice was different than what he had used to manipulate Tucker all along. It had a wisp to it and a cunningly soft candor. It was like being whispered a promise.

Tucker hated it.

 _You are too weak to do this. Let me take the next step so we can hurry up. I just want to retrieve Epsilon. I won't need a body for that part._

Through gritted teeth, Tucker took the next step himself.

And with that momentum, he carried forward for the final step toward them, his arm reaching out as if chains were pulling him down from the elbow.

The moment his fingers touched the outside of the contraption, the Meta's fingers mashed a button.

With a mechanical whirl, the unit activated like Tucker had not seen it do before. It glowed a magnificent blue and rattled with noise with an alien rhythm.

Outside of Tucker's own emotions, he felt a euphoric excitement, tracing down his nerves and spine and into his fingers. It was exhausting and unlike anything Tucker had felt or known before. Then it left, the Meta took their finger off the button, and Tucker collapsed.

He didn't hit the floor, though, rather, he was caught by Agent Washington, of all people, who then held him up and slung Tucker's arms over his shoulder. "Easy, easy," Washington breathed reassuringly as Tucker's whole body felt like it was formless.

"Hey! Is it safe yet?" Simmons' voice called from outside.

"It's safe," Tex's voice came from the Meta.

Tucker almost did a double take. That was _definitely_ Tex — her emotions were back, her strangely fond tone. God he hadn't realized how much he missed her.

"Welcome back, you damn dirty Blue," Grif said as they, and Junior, rounded the corner.

Junior squealed in delight, racing forward and wrapping his arms around Tucker's waist even as the only thing that was keeping Tucker upright was Agent Washington. The little alien didn't seem to notice, however, as he was simply swinging from his father's hips.

"I don't… what happened?" Tucker asked, resting his free hand on his son's head.

"Bait and switch," Simmons answered. "I came up with it actually."

"No, _I_ did," Grif argued.

"Bringing up Nick Cage's character from _Face Off_ doesn't give you credit for coming up with the plan, Grif," Simmons bickered.

"How else were you guys going to come up with this—"

"We needed to convince Sigma to leave you himself. Any other method is medically invasive. And would probably kill you," Washington answered more completely.

"So we gave you — and by extension, _him_ — an offer that couldn't be refused," another voice came from the Meta, more matter-of-factly and dull toned.

Tucker remained skeptical. "And now you're just going to, what, swallow him up too?"

"Sigma is no longer required for this coalition," a more unified voice came from the Meta. "He and Epsilon both are unstable units. They caused chaos as singular units. Such strain would cause us to splinter again. Sigma forfeited himself from the Meta in order to escape seeming death in the institute and used you to hunt a remaining piece of us for power. That uncertainty is unwelcome."

"Great," Tucker muttered. "And I guess you're saying Church and Tex aren't really in there anymore either, huh."

The Meta merely stared back at him.

"So you're just… what? Going to keep the two bad pieces of yourself locked in there? What'd Epsilon ever do?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah, seems pretty cruel now that you mention it," Simmons muttered.

"Epsilon was no better than Sigma, _believe me_ ," Washington snapped. "He was _my_ AI. You can thank him for my trust issues in general. Epsilon was so unstable we barely survived the implantation process. In fact… for a long time… I thought he _hadn't_ survived it." He glared at the device. "He killed himself. _In my head."_

"Yikes, talk about not _Drift Compatible,"_ Grif mused, earning an elbow from Simmons. He ignored it in favor of looking at Tucker directly. "Enough about all that shit. What about you? Are you okay?"

Tucker took a breath, patting Junior's head. "Yeah," he answered. "I guess."

Epsilon murmured in his ear.

 _"We'll be just fine."_


End file.
